


The True Story Here

by hhertzof



Category: Doctor Who (1963), Doctor Who (2005), Doctor Who (Big Finish Audio), NCIS, Sarah Jane Adventures, Sarah Jane Smith (Big Finish Audio), The Blinovitch Link
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-14
Updated: 2011-08-14
Packaged: 2017-10-22 15:18:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 42,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/239464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hhertzof/pseuds/hhertzof
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In 2012, a mysterious girl with amnesia shows up on Bannerman Road and Sarah Jane starts acting oddly. | In 1996, Sarah Jane has been warned not to open the door. | During the Year that Never Was, Martha Jones comes across a small band of freedom fighters. | In 1969, Sarah Jane Smith spends her gap year chasing her first story | In the 52nd century, the planet Heartshaven is under attack, the Lone Centurion is searching for his wife and a woman only known as Story tells her tales to anyone who will listen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Once Upon a Time

**Author's Note:**

> A great big thank you to my betas, paranoidangel and attempt_unique. I couldn't have done it without you.
> 
> And another big thank you to Martinius for [the original music](http://martinius.livejournal.com/177512.html) that they created for this story.
> 
> Title is from a Seanan McGuire song. Other lyrics are noted in the end notes to each chapter.
> 
> Lauren Smith is an extended canon character from the story "Lily" by Jackie Marshall from _Short Trips: A Christmas Treasury_ who has never been mentioned since.
> 
> Spoilers for _A Good Man Goes to War_ , _Sarah Jane Smith: Dreamland_ , _Kiss of Death_ and assorted other Doctor Who Extended Canon.

# The Story

  


> There is a story they tell, or used to tell, or will tell in the future, about a human woman who would herald the arrival on Earth of aliens. Some people said that the aliens would help mankind and some people said that they would destroy it.
> 
> The story was a lie.
> 
> The story was true.
> 
> But it didn't happen that way.
> 
> There are also stories told about the Time Lords. Echoes of memories of a race that have been erased from history. Those too are both true and false.
> 
> This is the story of a human woman named Sarah and a Time Lord called Rassilon and it never happened. But it did, and it should be remembered.
> 
> Rassilon was the father of the Time Lords; he harnessed the power of the black hole that they called the Eye of Harmony, which gave them mastery over time and space. But he thought little of other races, no more than you would think of a lab rat and he was perfectly happy to alter time to the Time Lords' benefit. Or to his own. And that was the problem. Lord Rassilon had plans to seed a myth in Time Lord history that he could twist to his advantage in the future.
> 
> And that is where the story began.
> 
> Myth isn't like history. It isn't about the facts. It's about what's remembered and by whom. Change an event and you can see the ripples, predict them, even. Change a myth and the pattern isn't as regular and nowhere near as predictable.
> 
> So Rassilon went looking for a test subject. A backwards planet, on the edge of the galaxy, that had little contact with other races. I could say he picked his subject at random - an ordinary specimen of humanity, but that would be a lie. If she hadn't been remarkable, he never would have noticed her. What she was, was a tipping point - her actions and the way she was remembered would have a profound effect on the future of the human race.
> 
> What does it take to turn a woman into a legend? Not much. Take one random Italian Duke and have him write a journal of prophecy, mentioning Sarah by name and then break the binding and disperse the pages, so that even if someone could interpret his ramblings they wouldn't be getting the entire picture. Make sure the pages fell into the hands of two disparate groups – schism is good for building faith when both factions believe they follow the one true path. Give them a cause and a goal and a time limit and when those are done and past give them another. Choose a name that evokes the mythologies that humans create for themselves, translate it into a dead language. The _Orbus Postremo_ , perhaps.
> 
> And that's where it gets complicated. Because she wasn't an ordinary woman and Time has its own agenda. It might have gone to plan, if she hadn't fallen in with another Time Lord, a renegade wanderer known only as the Doctor. Perhaps if she'd left after he regenerated, Rassilon's plans would have worked. No, that's wrong - they did work, after a fashion, maybe even the way Rassilon intended. Cause and effect are tricky when Time Lords are involved.
> 
> This is her story. Or perhaps it isn't. Perhaps it is mine. Or someone else's entirely.
> 
> This is the story of the siege of Heartshaven. That much is true.

  


# The Centurion

It still surprised Rory to find people warming themselves by a fire. The 52nd century should be more technologically advanced than that, at least to his mind. Despite everything he'd seen, he still expected glass towers and jet packs. Instead he was here, in a building that wouldn't have looked out of place in the year he came from, surrounded by a variety of humans and aliens, all waiting for the next ship out of here. If it hadn't been for the fireplaces, he could have closed his eyes and imagined himself in any airport on Earth.

At least it was a change from outside. He'd been on this planet a week and there hadn't been an hour when he wasn't freezing his arse off. There were times when a short metal skirt was more trouble than it was worth. But the Doctor had insisted he wear this on his quest, and Rory assumed he had his reasons. He was accustomed to not understanding the way the Doctor's mind worked.

He had been travelling for so long, looking and listening and asking questions, hoping somebody would know where Amy was. After the centuries he'd spent protecting her, while she was trapped in the Pandorica, he still couldn't accept that she'd been stolen from under his nose. They had a name now, Madame Kovarian, but they knew next to nothing about her or where she might have secreted Amy.

The place names on the board meant nothing to Rory, except the spaceport he'd come from and he wasn't sure where to go next. The planet of Diaris had had no new clues to offer him.

Rory leaned back in his seat, closed his eyes, and basked in the warmth of the fire while he considered his next move. There were two women with a handful of small children sitting opposite him, who were bickering about which story they should tell, finally settling on Little Red Riding Hood. This made him miss Amy more. He wondered if he and Amy would ever get the chance to tell fairy stories to their own children.

>   
> _They'll speak of girls in cloaks like flame  
>  That flickered through the wood;  
> They'll speak in riddles, hide her name,  
> As if they ever could  
> Know the secret reasons why  
> She ventured from the path;  
> Ask her now, and she'll reply  
> With nothing but a laugh --_   
> 

It was the song that drew him in and not having anything better to do, he found himself listening to the tale, which bore as much resemblance to the story he knew as Disney's movies did to Grimm.

> Once upon a time there was a girl, about the same age as Mirandy.

Mirandy seemed to be the eldest of the children. He guessed that she was about ten, though he didn't trust his own judgement in the matter.

> This girl, whose name was lost long ago, was sent by her mother to go to her grandmother who lived in the woods to fetch her little sister who had been visiting. And like any mother, she told her daughter to bundle up warm and stick to the path, so the girl took her long red coat with the hood and she set out on her journey.
> 
> It was a bright, sunny day, if chilly, and it wasn't far, but the girl was a bit of a dreamer and she dawdled. The path wasn't much used, so she was surprised when someone spoke to her and even more surprised to discover that it was a wolf. "Hello, little girl."
> 
> "Hello, sir." Little Red Riding Hood was always polite, even to wolves, and her father had warned her about this particular wolf, who bore a grudge against their family.
> 
> "Where are you going on this lovely day?"
> 
> "To grandmother's house, to fetch my sister home." She shouldn't have told him that. Talking to wolves is always dangerous; even the most innocuous question can lead one off the path.
> 
> The wolf smiled a dangerous smile. "And where does your grandmother live?"
> 
> "On the other side of the wood. And if I don't go now, I might be late. You must excuse me." Little Red Riding Hood must have realised her danger, because she hurried off down the path without waiting for a response. But she was also clever- because the path curved she cut back through the woods to see what the wolf would do. Knowing her magical coat would mask her scent, she buttoned it up tightly and pulled up the hood. She found a place hidden by brush and listened as the wolf told the rest of his pack that he'd seen her and gave the order that they should shadow her along the path, staying out of sight to make sure she got where she was going, by her Grandmother's orders. And that when she left with a changeling in place of her sister, they were to see that she got safely home.
> 
> A chill ran down her spine and she hurried back to the path so they wouldn't notice she had strayed. When Little Red Riding Hood reached her grandmother's house, neither the wolves nor her sister were in evidence in the one room house. "Grandmother, it's good to see you well," she lied, masking her wary glances around the room as a little girl's curiosity.
> 
> "And you, Granddaughter. It's late. You must be tired. Stay here tonight and I will set you on your way tomorrow." The black eye-patch she wore over one eye seemed to absorb the light and Little Red Riding Hood fought back a shiver.
> 
> "Mother will worry. I was supposed to come home tonight." Little Red Riding Hood had never quite trusted her Grandmother, though she'd never had any reason to doubt her.
> 
> "It's already getting dark and they're predicting snow. Stay here where it's warm and safe. I'll call your Mother to let her know where you are."
> 
> Red Riding Hood didn't trust that either. Throwing caution to the wind, she said, "Grandmother, what big ears you have."
> 
> "All the better to hear you with. We should spend the evening chatting. You can tell me all about what your parents have been up to."
> 
> "Grandmother, what big eyes you have." She knew this was rude, but sometimes one has to be to flush out the truth.
> 
> "All the better to see you with." Her Grandmother peered closely at her.
> 
> Little Red Riding Hood took an involuntary step backwards, but continued bravely. "What big teeth you have."
> 
> "All the better to eat you up."
> 
> And she realised in that minute that her Grandmother could just as easily send a changeling home in _her_ place. She'd never been quite as scared as she was in that instant. But since there was no longer any reason for caution, she stood her ground. "You're a wolf." Little Red Riding Hood stayed perfectly still as she considered her options. She couldn't outrun a wolf.
> 
> Her Grandmother didn't hesitate, but called in the other wolves to bind her.
> 
> Red Riding Hood couldn't let that happen. She ducked and wove through the wolves. Sometimes it's good to be small and quick. But before she knew it, the wolves had backed her into a corner. Things might have gone badly for her if a passing soldier hadn't heard the commotion. But spying his face in the window behind the wolves, she yelled, "Help!"
> 
> He was through the window before she could yell a second time. The breaking glass caught the wolves' attention, and the soldier called to the girl to run. She bolted through the back door and he followed soon after, using his sword to hold off the wolves. The soldier grabbed her hand and together they ran through the dark, snowy woods, the wolves hot on their trail. Perhaps the wolves might have got them if the soldier hadn't managed to wound every one in the fight, but Little Red Riding Hood knew the woods by heart and led the soldier into the deepest parts, where the overgrowth was so tangled that only a little girl or a man with a sword could get through. The wolves, bloody and battered soon gave up and the soldier returned Little Red Riding Hood safely home.

"But what about her sister?" One of the children asked, sparing Rory the need to ask himself.

"They say that Little Red Riding Hood is still looking for her," the woman who hadn't told the story replied. "Some versions say that her mother, the Herald, knew something was wrong and sent her out to find out the truth. I remember once hearing the story told by one of the storytellers of the Orbus Postremo who claimed that the soldier who rescued her was the Last Centurion himself." Suddenly the entire party was staring at him.

"Um, not that I know of." He found himself replying uncertainly. "I might do, sometime in the future." Or the past. He'd never got his head around time travel grammar. But that did change things. Changelings and a one-eyed woman who must be Madame Kovarian. Perhaps Diaris did have something to offer. "Tell me about the Orbus Postremo," he said. If they told stories about him, perhaps he needed to know about them too.

"They're a small cult," the woman answered readily enough. "Rather strange. Their mission is to tell stories both of the current timeline and from timelines that no longer exist and to guard a book of prophecy." She laughed at the absurdity, but Rory had seen at least one alternate reality and wasn't inclined to laugh. "Anyway, their order was supposedly founded by the woman they call the Herald, who lived back in the twenty-first century and who they claim fought Rassilon, the leader of the Time Lords, to keep the Earth safe from the ravages of the Time War. It's all fairy stories, of course, but they believe it. I'm Jessa and this is Dittany. And oldest to youngest, Mirandy, Ben, Carolin, Lian and Tess."

"I'm Rory," he replied absently. The mention of the Time Lords convinced him that this cult might be worth talking to. "Where would I find them?"

"They're wanderers, but I haven't seen any in a while," Lian said. "They tell the best stories." She didn't seem to notice Dittany's grimace at her rudeness. "You used to see them all over."

Jessa shrugged. "Rumour says that they've all been called back to Heartshaven. No one knows why, but these are strange days."

That was an understatement. "And where is Heartshaven?" It could be a building or a city or even a planet, for all Rory knew.

"It's a planetoid, in the Trion sector," Dittany said. "Given to them by one of the larger Trion clans back in the 24th century. They claim the original Heartshaven was a house on Gallifrey, but that's just a myth. If you're going there, you'll have to get a shuttle from Trion." An announcement interrupted her. "That's our ship. It was a pleasure meeting you. Good luck on your quest." She turned to help gather bags and children and Rory stood.

According to the board, there was a flight to Trion leaving in an hour and he intended to be on it.


	2. Three Nights Before Demons Run

# Story

The bombardment had started. They'd had plenty of advance warning, as the ships had appeared in orbit around the planetoid. If all went to plan, there would be enough time to let one last ship escape atmosphere with the last few scholars who had come seeking knowledge from the Orbus Postremo, enough time to run one last check for Flesh avatars who might have infiltrated the keep and enough time to activate the time lock that would prevent time travellers from coming or going during the siege. But they knew better than anyone that things don't always go to plan.

Madame Kovarian needn't have sent the ships. The only command the Order had given for this war was clear. The Battle of Demons Run was forbidden to them. They were historians and storytellers; they knew rules were made to be broken, but this one was part of a deeper story. What happened at Demons Run would echo through time past and yet to come, and the Orbus Postremo understood better than most how the future could affect the past.

They could have left their keep. That had not been forbidden, but Story had arrived early. Blue boxes had been seen throughout the catacombs and strangers appeared after the last ship had departed. The whispers spread throughout the keep that the Herald herself walked among them. Who among them would miss the chance to see history unfold?

* * *

Story had chosen the lesser of the two theatres for the storytelling. The curtains had been blue the last time she was here, now they were the deep green of the forest. She approved.

She didn't need much. They could have told their stories in the main hall, but here they would be out of the way of the people who now called the Winter Palace home, and she'd never liked being a nuisance, even if they didn't see her that way. And she would never get used to the way the other storytellers deferred to her, even though they were older and she was still a teenager. Her mother had just laughed when she had complained, and said that she had given up that particular fight with the Order a long time ago. The others might think Story was special because she was her mother's daughter, but Story knew better.

She had been offered a chair, a desk, even a clerk should she need one, but she preferred to sit on the edge of the stage as she planned, to give herself a sense of the space. The only requests she made were for the Lone Centurion to be brought to her when he arrived and that she have her old room back if it was not otherwise in use, not that she'd be sleeping much. It turned out that it had been left in readiness for her rare visits. Story wasn't sure whether to be bemused or honoured, but after she unpacked her cloak, she let them take her bag up and set to work.

The Centurion had been on the shuttle from Trion with her, but she had the advantage of knowing the Order and knowing the palace. She'd spent her early life here, running through the corridors, watching from the corners and finding every hidden nook and secret passage that her father had missed. Not that there had been many; he'd been very thorough in his own explorations as a boy. And so she'd had plenty of time to arrange herself before he arrived in the hall.

Now that first important task was done, her mind turned to other matters. A dozen tellers, including herself, had put their names forward, which simplified matters. Each could take two one hour sessions in the twenty-four hour day that was a relic of the Order's Earth origins and with luck, no one would lose their voice before the siege ended. She set to work, slotting storytellers in according to personal preferences and expected audience and waited for the Centurion to arrive.

He was longer than she expected, and she hoped they had persuaded him to eat something before he came to her. He still had a long way to go.

When Story heard voices just outside the door, she pulled her hood up to cover her face. After the introductions had been made, she sent his guide away. This was for his ears only.

Story smiled her most mysterious smile, even though he couldn't see it. It gave her confidence. "Welcome to the Keep of the Orbus Postremo."

"I understand that your people travel the length and breadth of the universe seeking stories. What do you know about my wife's disappearance?" he demanded. He glared at her and she might have been frightened if she had been his enemy.

"What people think and what we are are two different things. We're storytellers, not historians. The only mention we have of her is a story." Story didn't give him a chance to comment, but began,

> Once upon a time there was a princess who had had many adventures, been lost and found and married her soldier, her one true love. I know that's where most stories end. Happily-ever-after and all that. And for a while they were very happy together.
> 
> But there are always people who are jealous of happiness; who don't care who they hurt in their quest to get what they want. In this case, that person was an evil one-eyed witch who sought revenge on the royal wizard for slights both real and imagined. If she had been male, she might have been called something else, but fairy tales have their own vocabulary and the key word here is evil.
> 
> So she sent her minions to snatch the princess whilst her soldier was otherwise occupied. They say there was only one witness, an elderly woman, who despite her age tried to stop them. The minions wiped her memories of the event, for this was their power, and left her there on the ground. They left a changeling too, in place of the princess.
> 
> How do we know this? Well, everyone makes mistakes.
> 
> The princess was brought to the witch's castle in the sky and trapped in the tallest tower with troops around to keep her from escaping (for she was _that_ sort of princess) or being rescued. The witch had a plan, you see. If she raised the child as her own and taught it to love her and fear the royal wizard, well, then when the child took the throne, she would be right behind it, pulling strings from the shadows. And that would be her revenge.
> 
> Meanwhile the soldier and the wizard discovered the ruse and started searching the entirety of history for her from Earth-that-was to the far flung future. And the old woman - well, she was also a witch, and while she might not remember what had happened, she'd left herself a warning that the wolf was at the door.

The Centurion looked at her impatiently. "This is sounding suspiciously familiar."

Story smiled at him. "I thought it might. Sadly, the story that we have ends there. The ending has not yet been written. Our prophecy says that the child is lost but there is another story." She hesitated as though she was reluctant to share the story.

> They say that when the Herald's daughter was just a girl herself, she discovered that her sister was being held captive by a witch with one eye, who left a changeling in her sister's place and that she took the place of the changeling and walked right into the witch's lair in order to free her sister. But the witch had sent her sister away and the Herald's daughter barely escaped with her life.

There was a longer version that had become tangled with an even older tale over the course of centuries of retelling, but he would have heard that in his travels. "All we have is that fragment of story. It's not surprising. They say the Herald herself took pains to muddle what we do know about her life and her daughter, stealing from legend and fairy tale alike."

The Centurion frowned. "You said that she went to rescue her sister. Shouldn't that be daughters?"

"Sisters aren't always related by blood," Story shrugged. "And fairy tales contain truths hidden in their depths. And now you must go." She started to signal the guide to lead the Centurion back to the spaceport, but suddenly a body slammed into her.

"Get down, you idiot."

"You shouldn't be here!" Story looked up just in time to see River take out the woman behind the Centurion with one shot, and watched as the woman dissolved into a puddle of Flesh. "That's not good." Her hood had fallen when River had shoved her down, but that couldn't be helped. She could only hope that he wouldn't dismiss her words due to her youth.

"Not at all." River pulled Story to her feet. "You knew I was behind the curtain, didn't you?"

"Of course I did." Story looked over at the Centurion, who was contemplating the assassin's remains with something akin to horror. She pressed a button on a small device in her pocket and alarm bells started ringing throughout the palace. "I've blocked the signal, so if there were any others - well, there aren't now. The catch is that doing it planet-wide means that communication with our satellites has been disrupted. You need to go _now_ , Centurion. The shuttle will be returning to Trion and you need to be on it."

"But-"

"But nothing. The Demons Run rhyme is from our book of prophecy. The first scout ships are appearing on the monitors and within a day we'll be under siege. She hopes to trap us here and here we will stay. She hopes to trap you here; we will not let that happen." Story had already jumped lightly off the stage. "Do you remember the way back to the spaceport? Trust your pilot; the Herald chose him herself. He could fly blind through an asteroid field, or a barrage of missiles, if need be."

"I do." A grim look crossed his face. "Demons Run, then."

"Demons Run. And remember that not everything that is lost is lost forever."

Story watched him walk out the door before turning to River.

"That was impressive." River finally reholstered her gun. "Do they really tell that story?"

"They will," The storyteller said firmly. "As my mum once told me, when it becomes impossible to avoid destiny, sometimes you need to look it in the eye and yell 'Come and get me'."

River snorted. "Your mum scares me."

"Well, your mum scares me, so we're even." Story sat down on the edge of the stage again and swung her legs.

"He won't remember." River sat down beside her."He's got other things on his mind right now. The story means nothing to him and you're what? Sixteen? He'll remember this as a child playing dress-up and spouting nonsense."

"He will. His wife loves fairy tales, remember? He'll save it to tell to her after he's rescued her from Demons Run. Or maybe he won't, but he will remember the telling of it." Story turned her head to look at River. "But the important story is the other one. The one which led him here."

"Which one is that?" River looked at Story suspiciously. "What have you done now?"

"Spoilers," Story said sweetly, imitating River perfectly. She'd spent many long years practising that one. "Hasn't happened to you yet. But I should probably say in advance, 'I'm sorry'."

River was not mollified. "Now I'm worried. What have you done, sweetie?"

Story wasn't about to answer, so she changed the subject. "He left on the last ship out, you know. The time lock will be reactivated. You're stuck here until after it's over."

"As it should be. There's nothing I can do there and you shouldn't have to do this alone."

"I always have before. Besides, all I have to do is tell a few stories. Mum does the heavy lifting."

That earned her a sharp look from River. "Does this mean I'm finally going to meet your mother?"

"You've met my mother."

"No I haven't." Then, "Have I?"

"At least twice so far. Or maybe that hasn't happened to you yet. It's hard to keep everyone's timelines straight." Story smiled at her. "You might as well settle in. It's going to be a long siege."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timing notes: Rory, before Demons Run. River, after Demons Run.
> 
> Lyrics: The True Story Here by Seanan McGuire


	3. Interlude 1

The girl woke in a hospital bed, her mind full of fog. The first thing she noticed was that there was only one guard where there had once been two. The second thing she noticed was that the syringe with the next dose of whatever they'd been drugging her with had been left within arms' reach. The alarms wouldn't register until later. She lay completely still, focusing on regaining control of the limp muscles in her arm. She'd only have one chance at this.

The guard was more interested in the commotion outside than in here and somehow she managed to wrap her hand around the syringe and get it pointed towards the edge of the bed, hidden by the blanket. Only then did she stir as if she were waking up. The guard predictably came over to check on her, bending over the bed. Her thumb found the plunger and she pressed the needle as hard as she could into his hip. Almost immediately, he collapsed on top of her.

Her muscles didn't want to work, but gravity was with her and he slid off the bed to crumple in a heap on the floor. The guard was more than a foot taller than she was and twice as heavy, but she was less concerned about him waking up than she was that someone else would come in to check on her.

She threw off the blanket, glad they'd disconnected the electrodes while she slept, and stripped off her hospital gown. There were clothes in the cupboard that they'd made her wear when they took her out of the room for tests. The clothes weren't what she was used to, but she didn't remember them drawing comments and a hospital gown would.

Fumbling with unfamiliar fastenings and cursing her still foggy brain, she dressed as rapidly as she could. There was even a pair of shoes in the cupboard, though she couldn't remember them ever having put them on her. Still, like the clothes, they fit, and they'd be better than trying to run in bare feet.

Her fingers brushed the guard's neck, seeking a pulse and finding it still slow and steady. After a moment's thought, she tugged the guard's stun gun out of its holster and shoved it in the back of her trousers. Her muscles felt rubbery and she wasn't sure she'd hit what she aimed at, but it was better than no weapon at all.

The corridor was clear, though the alarms and flashing lights caused her head to spin. Picking a direction at random, she ran.

For a short time, she thought she'd made it. Most of the guards were busy elsewhere, and she recognised the grey corridors from when they'd taken her outside, and then she turned a corner and ran right into a female guard with sandy blonde curls. The guard yelled something. Meaningless syllables. She ignored him and slammed into the woman, who collapsed to the ground in a satisfying way, and when she tried to pull himself together, the girl hit her on the head with the butt of the stun gun she'd taken from the other guard. She immediately started fumbling with the teleport device on the woman's wrist. More unfamiliar catches slowed her down and she still felt out of it. Before she'd got it completely off, another voice called to her.

She half turned from where she was straddling the guard's still form. The man wore a jacket and bow tie, rather than one of the guards' grey and white uniforms, but that didn't mean anything. For all she knew he was the one behind all this. She slowly and carefully released the safety on the stun gun and aimed it at him. He said something that hovered on the edge of her understanding, but it escaped before she could make sense of it. Instead, she worked on loosening the last strap. She didn't know how to work it, so she strapped it to her own wrist and picked a number at random, jabbing at each key clumsily and to her relief, the hospital disappeared almost immediately.

It was raining. A cold, steady rain that soaked through her thin clothing before she realised what was happening. It woke her up a little but she was still in a daze when someone grabbed her hand and yelled. Her auditory comprehension still hadn't improved, but it was clear from the boy's actions that he wanted her to run.

The shoes she'd taken turned out to be good for running. Better than her normal shoes, she thought, then wondered what she normally wore. Letting the half-formed thought slip away, she ran, turning where the boy indicated she should, catching glimpses of what was chasing them but never getting a clear view. She noted absently that the buildings looked odd. Wherever she'd ended up, it wasn't home. The hospital had been strange too. The boy looked like he was from the North, all dark skin and close cropped black hair, but that didn't mean much on her home planet, and she was certain she was no longer on her home planet.

They turned another corner, into what she thought was the grounds of a private house. There were two people waiting there - a girl about the same age as the boy and an older woman. The boy pulled her off to the side and she stood there for a second, breathing heavily as their pursuer ran straight ahead and into a cage that must have been set up to trap it. There was more talking but she stood there uncomprehending as the adrenalin that had been keeping her upright dissipated and she collapsed on the grass.

She was vaguely aware of being carried into the house. One of them unstrapped the teleport device on her arm, a light shone in her eyes for a moment, and then she was bundled into a bed. The last thing she was aware of was someone taking off her shoes and tucking her in. For the first time in ages she felt safe and it was the easiest thing in the world to roll over and go to sleep.

* * *

"She just appeared in the middle of the road. She didn't even react when I yelled at her to run," Clyde said as they climbed the stairs to the attic. "It wasn't even like she didn't understand me - she was completely out of it."

"Her eyes were dilated. I think she'd been drugged." Sarah Jane fiddled absently with the gadget she'd taken off the girl. For a moment, Rani thought Sarah Jane was going to say something else, but instead she crossed the attic, and put it and the girl's weapon in the safe.

Rani understood why Sarah Jane would want to lock a weapon away, but wondered what made the gadget different from the other alien tech that littered the attic. Instead of asking she said, "We need to figure out who she is and get her home."

"What did you find when you scanned her, Sarah Jane?" Clyde asked.

"Oh, nothing. Human as they come," Sarah Jane replied. Was there a hesitation there or had Rani imagined it? "I think it's time for you two to get going. I've got some work to do, and I don't think she'll wake up for a while."

Now, that was odd. Not what she said, but the way she said it. Sarah Jane could be prickly and abrupt, but she rarely kicked them out when she worked. But Rani couldn't think of a good reason for insisting on sticking around, so she let Sarah Jane herd her and Clyde down the stairs and out the door.

She said a cheerful good-bye to Clyde, waited five minutes, then let herself back in and headed back up the stairs, carefully avoiding the squeaky steps. When she pushed open the door to the attic, Sarah Jane was sitting at the table, her head bent over a very old book. Rani wasn't sure if she made a noise or if Sarah Jane sensed her presence, but the woman turned and looked at her.

"Your bag is on the sofa," Sarah Jane said with a hint of a smile and Rani knew she'd been caught out.

Rani crossed over to the sofa and picked up her bag. "I thought you said you had to work," she blurted out to cover her embarrassment.

"Not all my work involves modern sources, Rani." Sarah Jane gave her a bemused look. "This journal was written by an Italian Duke I met while travelling with the Doctor. I thought I might write an article about him. It's just a facsimile, but I knew the person who owned the original and he arranged for me to get a copy. The bit I'm trying to read isn't in English, so it's slow going."

Once again, Rani found herself wondering if Sarah Jane was hiding something, but she had no excuse to grill her friend over a perfectly reasonable bit of research. "Sorry, I interrupted."

"Oh, that's okay. But I do need to get to work now."

Rani took the hint and headed out the door, resolving to keep a close eye on Sarah Jane. This sort of secrecy was never a good sign.

* * *

Sarah Jane watched the door close and then rubbed her eyes, wishing, not for the first time, that the Book of Tomorrows was as incomprehensible to her as it was to everyone else. But then, that was its purpose, wasn't it? To trigger memories buried deep in her subconscious; knowledge she didn't even know she had.

She'd spotted the biodamper/tracker unit in the girl's wrist almost immediately and it was now only picking up varying levels of static. It was a risk, but disabling it completely was more likely to be noticed by whomever had put it on her, assuming they had time travel capabilities, and she had no reason to assume otherwise. But it was the scan she'd done after she'd obscured the signal that bothered her, or perhaps it was the fact that she hadn't been surprised by the result of the scan. "Not what you have done, but what you will do," she muttered, not realising she'd spoken aloud. "I guess history won't be satisfied with half-remembered tales of the war and before the war."

She closed the book and laid it down in the safe beside the vortex manipulator she'd taken off the girl's arm. Pressing her fingers on a certain point in the safe, she waited for the hyper-dimensional bubble to open. It was a small one, but one never knew who might break in to the safe. Secrets within secrets. Sarah Jane pressed a few buttons on the vortex manipulator and frowned at the date before she put it in the bubble and then returned the _Exemplar Cras_ to the small stack of books beside it. Fishing a piece of paper out of one of the other books, she added the date to the list she'd tucked into the bubble. She ran a finger down the list. "The lies we tell ourself so we can sleep at night," she said softly. Denial was no longer a refuge; she wouldn't be sleeping well tonight.


	4. Two Nights Before Demons Run

# Arrival

The TARDIS landed with a nasty, stuttering sound.

"Still held together with bailing wire and duct tape, I see," Sarah Jane joked.

Clyde stared at her. The TARDIS was amazing and he'd actually had a trip in her. And besides, she and Jo had helped fly the TARDIS, so if they were off course, it might even be Sarah Jane's fault. Not that he truly believed that, but how could she be _complaining_ about the trip.

The Doctor contrived to look insulted. "Are you insulting my TARDIS?"

"No, I'm insulting your ability to repair your TARDIS," Sarah Jane snapped back. "If we've landed off-planet, I'll let you deal with the Judoon. These two have been grounded, you know. The Judoon are sort of interplanetary coppers," Sarah Jane explained to Santiago and possibly to Jo. "And they grounded Clyde and Rani for interfering with a police investigation. Which from their vantage point, was the correct thing to do, so there's no way I could argue that this was an injustice."

It hadn't even occurred to Clyde that appealing their sentence was an option.

"But think of it, Sarah, their first trip to another world. We could at least wander around for few minutes."

"What aren't you telling us, Doctor?" Jo jumped in.

The Doctor looked sheepish. "We seem to be caught in a temporal knot. Nothing to worry about. We're just stuck here in linear time until the obstruction ends. Shouldn't be more than a day or so. I think."

Both women glared at him, then Sarah Jane threw her hands up in the air. "Why not? What could possibly go wrong?" She said the last in the most sarcastic voice Clyde had ever heard her use, and that was saying something. But she was already reaching for the lever that would open the door.

Clyde bounded out the door, only to stop short, causing Rani and Santiago to bump into him.

Oh, brilliant. Just brilliant." Sarah said sharply as she avoided the pile-up and stared down one of the tunnels. "Couldn't we have landed in a nice radioactive pool on Skaro instead?"

"They're just tunnels," Rani said disappointedly. "We could be anywhere."

"We could be anywhere. But we're not." Sarah Jane had turned her glare on the Doctor again. "Jo, when we were on the alien planet fixing that machine of his, he said something about the Ponds travelling with him. Do you remember what it was? All I heard was honeymoon."

"Just some nonsense about him leaving them on a planet on a honeymoon."

"Sarah?" The Doctor had gone very still.

Sarah gave him an odd smile. "So the planet's on its honeymoon. Not Amy and Rory. It's later than that for you. Demons Run? Do I need to start keeping a diary like River's?"

"After that. What does that have to do with where we are now?" The Doctor was looking warily at the tunnels now. "I've been here before."

"Of course you have. The catacombs of the Winter Palace." Sarah turned. "We'd best go up."

"The Winter Palace - the one on Turlough's planet- on Heartshaven." His face stilled.

She nodded grimly. "I'd like to think we're not when I think we are, but I don't believe in coincidences either."

Clyde didn't have any idea what she was referring to, but the Doctor nodded in agreement, though he didn't comment.

"Doctor, there's nothing we can do down here. And I spent three months in these catacombs helping to repair the security system. I've had my fill of them." Sarah moved purposefully down the corridor leaving the others to follow in her wake.

* * *

"Tegan, this is Sarah. She used to travel with the Doctor, and just wanted to run into the wardrobe for a quick change of clothes, Sarah, Tegan."

"Pleased to meet you. I'd shake hands but-" Sarah did her best to look embarrassed at the situation. But being covered in purple goo was a hazard of knowing the Doctor, so she expected they'd understand.

"No problem. There's a shower off the wardrobe room, if you'd like to use that too. Oh, it's probably moved since you travelled with him. He had to dump some of the spare rooms at one point. Would you like me to show you where it is?" Tegan offered.

But Turlough jumped in. "I'll do it, I need a shower myself."

This got a look from Tegan that Sarah was quick to interpret. It seemed the other woman thought Turlough fancied her. Sarah wondered idly if this was a pattern with him or if it was the whole not running away screaming thing. Whichever it was, Turlough had already headed for the door to the rest of the TARDIS and Sarah jumped to follow. She knew from experience that she didn't want to get lost in there.

It couldn't have been more than thirty minutes later that the two of them returned to the console room, freshly showered and immaculately dressed to find the Doctor snapping at Tegan, "What do you mean, Turlough brought a girl in here? I can't go back. The temporal chronosphere is massively unstable at the moment. We can't land back in 1996 until it's been completely discharged. So I've just sent us several thousand years into the future. We'll have to stay here until it's discharged.. How irresponsible can that boy be?"

"I'll take full responsibility, Doctor," Sarah interrupted. "I wasn't about to spend the day covered in purple slime. I figured I could pop into and out of the TARDIS before you left." When she'd entered the TARDIS back on Earth, she had deliberately overloaded the chronosphere so he'd have to dematerialise almost immediately. "You must be Nyssa. Sarah Jane Smith. I used to travel with the Doctor."

"I certainly don't blame you," Tegan said bluntly. "If I'd been in your shoes, the TARDIS wardrobe would have been a tempting lure."

"Tegan has a point, Doctor. No one could have known that chronosphere would go bad. What can it hurt to have Sarah along for a trip?" Nyssa added, to Sarah's surprise. Neither of the women knew her, so she hadn't expected quite that much support from them.

"The TARDIS wardrobe is not a clothes shop." The Doctor threw his hands up. "But as we don't have a choice, we might as well make the best of it. One quick adventure and then we'll get Sarah home in time for tea." He threw open the door.

"Catacombs? Haven't we had enough of catacombs?" Tegan complained to Nyssa. "I've given up hope of ever seeing the sun again."

The Doctor ignored her. "Turlough, is something wrong?"

"Aside from the fact that we're back in the Winter Palace?" Turlough asked sarcastically. "These tunnels are so old, I couldn't tell you when, or if the Palace even exists up there," He started walking. "There's an exit not far from here. We're not going to learn anything down here."

"Must we? Can't we just turn around and go? Tegan asked. "I don't fancy meeting those Morass things again." It was alright for him. The Morass wouldn't harm him.

"We won't be going anywhere, I'm afraid. There's some sort of temporal anomaly going on and the TARDIS is grounded until it passes." The Doctor looked at Turlough. "If the Morass is still active, we'd probably be better off in the palace. Given enough time and a lack of guns pointed at me, I might even be able to repair it."

"Then we'd best get moving. I'm with Tegan here. I'd rather not spend any more time in these tunnels than is strictly necessary," Nyssa set off after Turlough and the others followed.

Trailing after the other two, Tegan heard the Doctor ask Sarah, "Is everything alright?"

Sarah rolled her eyes at him. "Strange telephone call, check. Attempted assassination, check. Alien invasion, check. Unexpected trip on the TARDIS - it's been a long day, Doctor, and I think it's about to get longer. Of have you forgotten that we've both been here before. Tegan, was it?"

Suddenly the other woman was right by her side, chattering about how she'd travelled with the Doctor before and asking questions about Tegan's travels. Sarah clearly didn't want to discuss her day with the Doctor and while Tegan wondered why, she had no objection in aiding and abetting her.

* * *

The Doctor herded Harry and Sarah out of the TARDIS. "She just needs to rest a bit. She'll be okay tomorrow. For now we can explore." Swinging his long scarf over his shoulder, he set off at a rapid pace, leaving Harry and Sarah to follow in his wake.

Harry frowned at the long tunnel ahead of them. Why couldn't they ever land somewhere _nice_ , like a beach or a botanical garden. Though, knowing the Doctor, if they ever did land on a beach or in a botanical garden, there would be something trying to kill them there too.

"You haven't landed us on Peladon again?" Sarah was asking. She didn't seem thrilled about their surroundings either.

"Oh, no, no. Different sort of caverns. Those were mined out of the rock. These look more like they've been drilled. I wonder why." The Doctor trailed off into muttering about rock formations and composition causing Sarah to roll her eyes at Harry behind his back.

Harry stopped suddenly and leaned against one of the walls crossing his arms. He was about to say something when he fell backward. He caught himself before he hit the ground and stared. The other side of the wall couldn't have been a greater contrast. It had the look of an old castle he'd once been in which had been turned into a hospital. This wasn't a hospital as far as he could see, but it was clear that it wasn't being used for its original purpose either. Antique paintings fought for wall space with video screens and the furniture was a similar jumble of eras.

" A secret door. Brilliant. Good job, Harry." The Doctor said as he sauntered through it. "See, Sarah, I told you it wasn't Peladon."

Sarah scurried through it as though she were afraid that it would close with her on the wrong side, and Harry didn't blame her. Especially since the door did slam shut almost immediately causing both Sarah and Harry to jump.

And then they were hurrying to catch up with the Doctor again, as he set off to try to figure out what had caused the TARDIS to stall here.

* * *

"I thought you said this was the jewel of the 50th century," Martha said as she glared at the tunnel in front of them.

"We just landed a little lower than I expected," the Doctor replied reassuringly. "In the catacombs." He spun around before choosing a direction. "We want to go this way."

Martha followed him dubiously.

"I've never seen it at its height. The planetoid was deeded to the Order of the Orbus Postremo by the Turlough Clan at some point in the 24th or 25th century. The Orbus Postremo spent the next two thousand years building it into a destination for scholars and researchers. The Order has dedicated itself to collecting stories from everywhere in the universe. They have the largest collection of oral history, mythology and folk and fairy tales that has or will ever be assembled." The Doctor hit a dead end and doubled back without losing a beat. "You wouldn't think historians had enemies, but during the 52nd century, some idiot will try to destroy the collection."

"I gather that's when you were here last," Martha said, rolling her eyes. So typical. "Have you considered they might have been trying to kill you?"

"No. Well, I don't think so. It's not like there was any real danger. The defences held, for the most part. A little structural damage and a few cuts and broken bones. Nobody died."

They finally emerged into the open, just in time to hear the rumble of bombs exploding on the defence shields and see the bright yellow light they produced.

"You were saying?" Martha asked. She didn't wait for an answer but instead she started cautiously making her way across ground covered in snow towards the castle not far away.

It was just as well, because the Doctor had none to give.

# The Journalist

"There's a storyteller in one of the halls," Harry offered. He wasn't particularly thrilled with their latest stop, between the bombs exploding overhead and the Doctor _claiming_ that there was some sort of temporal glitch preventing them from taking off again. He'd wandered off shortly thereafter leaving Harry and Sarah to fend for themselves. Harry didn't understand why the residents, some sort of religious cult, were taking it all so calmly, but they were. Most were just going about their daily business with no time to spare for the strangers in their midst. At least in the theatre, they'd be out of the way.

"Fairy stories," Sarah said scornfully. "Must we?"

Harry didn't understand her dislike of fairy stories. He liked a good panto himself. He always tried to take young Will to one every Christmas. "Why don't we just see what it's like? If we don't like it, we can leave."

Sarah frowned but followed him in.

It wasn't a large theatre, seating maybe a hundred people, and it was only half full. The majority of the crowd were children, with a few adults sprinkled among them. Judging from the chatter, he guessed that the adults were early risers for the night shift and the children had been brought here to keep them occupied until they got sent off to bed. Harry turned to Sarah to comment on this but the chatter stopped abruptly and he turned to see what they were looking at.

A tall woman in a red hooded cloak walked down the aisle. She stopped about halfway to the stage and pushed back her hood to reveal red hair, then unfastened her cloak as her eyes swept the room. "I don't think I need this today. It's not like you don't know me. Most of you. For those of you who don't my name is Story and that is what I tell." She draped the cloak over her arm and continued towards the stage still talking. "No, I didn't choose it. My mother did, so you can blame her."

That got a larger laugh than Harry felt it deserved, making him wonder if he'd missed a joke. As she passed their seats, he realised the woman was barely out of her teens, if that. And yet, he'd been told by one of the acolytes that she was the best of their storytellers despite her youth.

She'd reached the stage by now and she glared at the chair set out for her. "I told them I didn't need a chair. Too high." Draping her cloak over it haphazardly, she ignored the microphone, but moved the water set out for her to the edge of the stage, before dropping down beside it to sit, her legs dangling over the edge. "This is much cosier. So who's ready for a story?"

Everyone cheered. Even Sarah, after Harry poked her gently, though her cheer was half-hearted.

"I think I'll start today with a story some of you might know." And she began.

> Once upon a time, a long time ago on Earth-that-was, there was a girl who liked to ask questions. It was an exciting time to be alive. Back then, very few people from Earth had ever left their own planet and then, only through outside means. But when she was growing up there were two countries working on space flight and they didn't like each other. So they made it into a race, and to be honest it was a lot less dangerous than some of the other ways they were competing, so we have to give them that.
> 
> Now this girl, who we know as the Herald, had just been a little girl when the first unmanned space probe was launched, you see and it had caught her imagination. She was a bright girl, good at her school work, especially in science and English and once she finished school, she found herself considering what she wanted to do next. She'd applied to university, but if she wanted to go into rocket science, the jobs were mostly in other countries, and in those days women scientists were rare.
> 
> Sometimes when you make these decisions (and you will have to make such decisions when you're older) you do it alone and sometimes they're influenced by the people you meet along the way. Perhaps this story would have ended differently if the Herald hadn't been so curious or if she hadn't crossed paths with the people she did. Or if her aunt, a well known scientist in her own right hadn't promised her a tour of one of the major space facilities of the time.
> 
> The Herald was always a little too curious for her own good, so when the Lone Centurion ran into the bookshop where she helped out at weekends and collapsed, she went to help him. She looked up to say something to the other shop girl, but the Wanderer was already locking the door and changing the sign, before dropping down to crouch beside her. The other woman had trained as a doctor, though we know her better for her travels during the year that never was, and she quickly checked to make sure he was okay whilst the Herald studied the strange markings on his face and arms.
> 
> He shook them both off and apologised. The Centurion, you see, had been running for a very long time.
> 
> The Wanderer would not take no for an answer but invited him to sup with the two of them as they had just been about to break for lunch.
> 
> This was news to the Herald, who had worked in the shop for weeks now and always felt like the Wanderer and her partner regarded her as a necessary nuisance. But she followed them up the stairs where she stood awkwardly clasping her hands behind her back whilst the Wanderer prepared food and drink. Her offer of help rebuffed, she wandered around looking at the books and other clutter that filled the flat.
> 
> It wasn't until they were all settled down to eat that either woman asked him why he had marked himself in such a fashion.
> 
> "That's an awful lot of magpies," the Herald is said to have said "Do you have to count them _all_?
> 
> The Lone Centurion was startled but then he smiled for the first time since he'd entered the shop. "No, I've almost finished."
> 
> The Wanderer looked at the Herald sharply. "It must be important, if you've gone to all this length."
> 
> "The fate of the world depends on it," was the Lone Centurion's reply.
> 
> The subject was dropped and talk turned to matters of the day and when the Centurion left there was money in his pocket and a lightness to his step, for sometimes just having a moment to relax and reflect on what has gone before can restore one for difficult tasks that lay ahead.
> 
> But this is not the Lone Centurion's story, even if it is.
> 
> It would be a lie to say that the Herald didn't think about that again. She did constantly as she packed for the trip to America, turning the incident over in her mind, this way and that and trying to decide what it meant and wondering if she would ever find out.
> 
> The tour was less interesting than the Herald had expected. Somehow all the most interesting bits were classified. What she got shown were briefing rooms and closed offices and not much else.
> 
> The Herald's aunt was talking to some of the other scientists about boring stuff - some mutual colleague of theirs who was now working for a major companyand was about to get married, so she reckoned it wouldn't hurt just to look around the corner when she heard the commotion.
> 
> She peered into what looked like a lecture hall, to see a man in handcuffs protesting that he'd had a good reason for his behaviour. She might have tried to get closer, but she heard a noise, and ducked back around the corner, before peering around to see if it was safe.
> 
> What she saw was a blue box. A tall blue box with a light on top from which three people emerged. She barely recognised the Lone Centurion dressed in the garb more common to a man of his time, but the other man she'd seen on the primitive video broadcasts of the time - the President of the country in which she stood. And neither the Lone Centurion nor the woman with him looked like bodyguards, though, to be certain, both could have defended him, had the need arose. She watched them go out of sight into the room where the prisoner was being held and crept over slowly to investigate further. And it might have ended there, if she hadn't heard people coming. Unthinkingly, she darted for the closest hiding place she saw - inside the blue box. Which turned out not to be the best hiding place after all, as less than a minute later the other three returned with the prisoner, now free and apparently in charge. But there were a lot of nooks and crannies in the TARDIS, and the Herald easily found a place to hide.
> 
> Or so she thought.
> 
> For at the end of the former prisoner's list of barked orders was this, "And don't think I don't see you down there."
> 
> Sheepishly, the Herald emerged from her hiding place, wondering how he'd known she was there, and more importantly, why he'd set his craft in motion before acknowledging her presence. "Sorry?"
> 
> "Right. Next time try to say that like you mean it." He gave her the sort of look her aunt gave her when she was being impertinent before telling her that he was going to drop off the President before returning her to her aunt.
> 
> The President was eyeing her suspiciously, so the Herald raised her hands to show she was unarmed. But when he suggested that they drop her off first, the Doctor was quick to say that he wanted to talk to her, and as you all know, people listen to the Doctor. He talks almost as much as I do.

She paused there, waiting for the laughter to die down and noted that both Sarah and Martha were paying closer attention than they had when they first came in. All to the good, that.

Finally she said, "If you're ready for me to begin again." There was a bit more scattered laughter, but it quickly died down.

> The Herald wasn't sure she liked the sound of that. She gave the Centurion a tentative smile but there was nothing reassuring in the way he looked at her either. All she could do was hope she wasn't in big trouble.
> 
> Once they had let the President out, the man they called the Doctor turned to her and told her that she shouldn't be on the TARDIS - not yet anyway. The fabric of time is thin and prone to tear.
> 
> But this was before the Herald knew who he was - even before she knew who _she_ was, and she assumed that she'd stumbled on something classified.
> 
> Even the Centurion's protests that she'd helped him in London fell on deaf ears.
> 
> It was about this time that she realised something was missing. The marks that had covered his hands and face were gone as though they'd never been. Desperately she asked if he was finished counting crows hoping to shift the focus off herself and get a few questions of her own answered.
> 
> He commented that she'd referred to them as magpies when he'd seen her last.
> 
> The Herald was ready with her counter-argument. There were no magpies in the country they were in, so people counted crows instead. She could tell the Doctor was getting exasperated, though the woman merely looked amused and so the Herald prepared herself for the lecture she knew was coming, about not sticking her nose in where it wasn't wanted.
> 
> But he didn't lecture her at all. No, he was worried about something more drastic. He'd met her before, back when he was much younger and was worried about her crossing her own timeline. Not that he was willing to give her details that might actually be useful. No, he just muttered in the vaguest terms about the chance that history might be knocked off course.
> 
> She was quick to defend herself. The box had been left unattended and he'd also been the one to send the Lone Centurion wandering. She was not to blame for this. Especially, if he knew her as well as he claimed to.
> 
> Finally the woman with the sandy blonde hair who hadn't been introduced and who had remained silent through the proceedings spoke in the Herald's defence, saying that the Doctor should have faith in her ability to lie.

The storyteller broke off here as a large crash echoed through the palace and the lights flickered dramatically, followed by the whir that indicated that the backup generator had kicked in.

Harry turned to look with the others just as a fair-haired young man in what looked like a cricketing outfit ran in.

"I need Harry Sullivan and any other medical personnel in the room. Something got through the shields and we've got injured." The man's voice easily cut through the din, and before Harry could wonder how the man knew his name, Sarah was pulling him out of his seat.

The storyteller repeated this. "We need any medical personnel to go with the Doctor. Children, stay put. This is the heart of the palace and one of the safest places to be right now. There will be a five minute break. If you must use the toilets, please use the ones backstage."

Harry and Sarah followed the Doctor outside, along with a black woman, whose clothes also marked her as an outsider. "Harry, it's good to see you again." The Doctor shook Harry's hand energetically. "And you are?"

"Martha, Martha Jones." She was staring at Sarah with a slight look of bewilderment for some reason.

Sarah smiled gravely at her before turning to the other man. "You know your previous incarnation is wandering around here somewhere, Doctor, and possibly one of your future ones," she glanced at Martha, "assuming you're still travelling with him."

"I. Um. Yes," Martha replied awkwardly. "Assuming that you're that Doctor."

"I do remember that, Sarah. I was there. Here. And yes, I am the Doctor, Miss Jones." He stared at her thoughtfully before turning to the other two. "I need you both to go up to where they're setting up the infirmary. Up those stairs, at the end of the corridor. I believe its usual purpose is a gymnasium. I need to talk to Sarah for a moment but I'll be up shortly."

Harry and Martha did as they were bidden and Harry found himself trying to answer Martha's questions about regeneration to the point where he forgot to ask her any questions about herself.

* * *

Sarah looked at the Doctor. "What's wrong? Shouldn't I have known who you were? It was easy to see the pattern once I knew about regeneration."

"No, it's not that." He shoved his hands in his pockets. "Under normal circumstances you wouldn't be travelling with me. But you came into the TARDIS to get something and I took off without realising you were there. There's a future you running around here and that could be dangerous. Blinovitch Limitation Effect and all that. She knows to stay out of your way, but you need to try to stay out of hers and most importantly, if your paths do cross, don't touch her. She's currently heading the team trying to get the main generator back up."

"Don't touch myself. Got it. I figured I'd stick around and listen to the end of the story. I wouldn't be much use in the infirmary. And if I'm already working on the electrical systems-" She barely glanced up as a group of teenagers pushed past her heading for the theatre, complaining that they weren't being allowed to help move debris out of the way so that people who understood such things could assess the damage. "You'd best get up to medical. You're probably needed up there."

He nodded and went on his way and Sarah followed the teens into the theatre where the storyteller was waiting.

# The Wanderer

The intermission had stretched out to 10 minutes and then 15, but the storyteller had learnt patience long ago. The majority of her audience were little ones and they would grow restless if they were expected to sit still too long. A few more adults trickled in. She spotted River among them, but didn't move from her place on the stage. Rani, Clyde, and a boy who had to be Santiago found seats about halfway between the stage and the door.

"Are we all sitting comfortably? Then let's begin."

> Once upon a time there was a woman who travelled the world telling stories. This wasn't as easy as it sounds. Nights are cold, there is rain and snow and sometimes one doesn't receive the welcome one would hope for. But none of those things scared her. What scared her was the dark sorcerer in his floating castle who had taken over her world.

"You never finished the last story," someone protested from the audience.

Story shrugged. It wasn't quite the end, but the rest of the story, at least the bits she _could_ tell, weren't very exciting. Best to end it there and let them write their own ending. "That's all we know. No, I take that back. We can deduce from the other stories we tell that she got home safely. We know she chose journalism over rocket science. At least, we assume she did. We know that many years later she would be persuaded to go up in a spaceship by the Keeper of the White Chapter, and perhaps I might tell that story later on. For now, since it came up in the previous story, I thought I might tell you a tale of the Year that Never Was."

> It is one thing to tell stories and spread news in a time of peace, it is quite another to spread sedition under a totalitarian government. One can never quite forget the consequences for failure. One can never forget the benefits of success, either.
> 
> So she roamed the world telling stories of a hero who might save the world if they would only believe, sleeping rough and never staying too long in any one place. Always seeking those people, backs bent with adversity who held the spirit of freedom and rebellion within their hearts.
> 
> She avoided well-trodden roads, sticking to the older paths that had existed since time immemorial and one such path was known back then as the Appalachian Trail. It had existed for centuries, once a well worn footpath, now turned over to hikers and campers. There were still people living along the route, far from major population centres, who preferred nature to men, or who had fled the cities when the first killings had happened.
> 
> The Wanderer had been walking for a long time now, though she'd only been at her task for a month or two. She was tired, she was cold, and due to a nasty storm which had sprung up, she was wet clean through when she came to the cabin.
> 
> It was in better shape than some she had seen. Wood stacked neatly off to the side, in preparation for the winter still to come, a winter more severe than any seen before in this part of the country, for the sorcerer's wanton destruction had thrown nature itself out of balance.
> 
> They were also armed, judging by the movement at the windows. There was always the chance that she'd run into someone who would shoot first and ask questions later. She held up her hands to show she was friendly and two women emerged from the house, rifles carelessly slung over their shoulders and they invited her in and offered food and a place to sleep for the night. One of those women was the Herald.
> 
> That night, the Wanderer didn't just tell stories, she listened. And this is the story she heard.
> 
> The Herald had been caught on the wrong side of the mighty ocean when the dark sorcerer had seized power. Quickly sizing up the situation she'd gathered her people around her- the children she was training and their parents, and knowing they would need more protection than she could give them, she contacted an old friend.
> 
> He was a Naval Officer, a man she had worked with before when she had been a war correspondent and he had been in the Marines. And she told him to gather his people together. They needed to think and they needed to plan, but right now they needed to stay alive long enough to do both. It took some arguing, but eventually he agreed. They'd come here to this abandoned holiday camp and they had built themselves a base. Once they had fought terrorists, now they were the terrorists.
> 
> But the camp wasn't just filled with warriors, though warriors they had. The original group of twenty had quickly grown to four times that. They'd rigged a generator to a watermill for electricity. The chemistry lab set up in one of the other cabins was as good as the Wanderer had ever seen when she worked in a hospital. They'd been joined by a botanist, an explosives expert and several environmental activists. And somehow- somehow the Herald and some of the other tech people had built a network that kept them in touch with other groups like theirs around the world.
> 
> Some of them had travelled with the Doctor too and once they knew the Wanderer's plan, they told her stories she could use in her travels. Some had just known someone who knew someone who had been pulled into their band of outlaws, but all were wholly committed to the cause of deposing the evil sorcerer.
> 
> When she left the camp a week later, she was more hopeful than she'd ever been that this crazy plan might work. She had a list in her head (paper could be compromised) of other cells she could contact if she needed aid and a backpack with whatever food and medical supplies they felt they could spare.
> 
> And after seeing their determination and resourcefulness, she was resolved to succeed in her task whatever it took. The fate of the human race depended on it. And for the first time, she truly believed the Doctor's plan might succeed.

After she'd finished the story, Story announced another intermission, so that the carers could get their youngest charges to bed. It had been late when she started and it was later still now. She made a few announcements that had been given to her by one of the acolytes who wandered in and out with messages, mostly about the damaged part of the palace, and sleeping assignments. There had been a shift change whilst she talked- the Order was on a four-shift rotation now, so that any time of the day or night there would be a full staff monitoring the situation.

Thankfully, only the one bomb had got through. The problem had been fixed, the shields were holding, and if all went to plan they would continue to hold.

She checked the clock. One more story and then another storyteller would come to relieve her. It had always been thus. She might be the most famous of the Orbus Postremo's storytellers, but she wasn't the only one. The stories would continue non-stop until the crisis was over. The children (and the adults) would listen and learn their history so that the Order's purpose and what they protected wouldn't be lost.

# The Centurion

Story waited until everyone had settled down again. Her audience had changed as people went on shift or off. A short-sighted blonde woman had provided five minutes of disruption as she'd collected her three charges. There were now two dark-haired women in the last row, still showing signs of the dust and debris they must have been helping to clean up. Tegan and Nyssa. They were much younger than she'd expected, but that was true for all of the Doctor's companions who had ended up here.

She nodded at the hooded acolyte who refilled her water, but did not speak. Now was not the time for that.

"One last story from me and then Loisa will take over." Loisa was best at the funny stories; stories more suited to help them sleep that night. Story had no such comfort to offer.

> Once, long ago, in another place and time now forgotten, there was a mysterious box called the Pandorica. No one knew what it was or even what it contained but they knew it had a guardian and that guardian was the Last Centurion.
> 
> No one knew what he protected or why. Or what kept him going through the long, dark years. But they told stories of a box that contained a treasure beyond price, or a weapon so powerful it would destroy the world, or a prison that contained the greatest criminal in the universe. Some said it contained his one true love and he was cursed to protect her until he could find a way to free her from its confines. A thousand stories sprang up, each one more wondrous or terrible than the last, and each time he was seen, the stories grew and changed, as stories do.
> 
> But this is the true story.

It wasn't quite. The Orbus Postremo were only historians by proxy. They were more concerned with the story than the truth of the matter; in what remained after the rough edges had been smoothed out by time and a thousand retellings.

She told the story in a low voice, as though she were confiding secrets to the crowd. Another wanderer on a quest to do what was right. Another dead-end future averted. It didn't matter if they believed the story, as long as they listened. Playing with time could be worse than weapons of mass destruction.

Loisa was already waiting in the wings when she explained how the Doctor had sacrificed himself to reboot the universe, so Story ignored the sounds of disappointment when she stopped there. "Come back tomorrow night and you can hear more." She draped her cloak around her shoulders, glad that the theatre had been warm enough that she hadn't needed it and then picked up her empty pitcher and glass and smiled at Loisa. "Sorry you have to follow that."

"Well, you couldn't have anyone else. At least my style is different enough to wake them up a bit. Imagine if Jed were following you," was the woman's cheerful reply as she set the chair back on the stage.

"I'd never do that to him." Story gave the older woman a friendly tap on the shoulder and walked off the stage, noting that by the time she reached the door, Loisa had got the audience to laugh at three different things, two of which were incredibly rude.

And as for Story, she stopped at the dining hall for something to eat and then headed up to bed. She had two more nights of stories to tell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timing:   
> Fourth Doctor and crew: post _Genesis of the Daleks_  
>  Fifth Doctor and Crew: post _Kiss of Death_ ; Sarah Jane Smith with the Fifth Doctor: post _The Blinovitch Link_ and pre _Interference_  
>  Tenth Doctor and Martha: post _Blink_  
>  Eleventh Doctor and crew: post _Death of the Doctor_ and post _A Good Man Goes to War_
> 
>  _The Journalist_ : Blink/Day of the Moon/pre The Time Warrior  
>  _The Wanderer_ : Last of the Time Lords  
>  _The Centurion_ The Big Bang


	5. Interlude 2

The girl woke to sun speckling the room, filtered through the leaves on the trees outside. She felt groggy but most of the fog had lifted. The bedroom she had slept in had the impersonal look of a guest room, but it was still nicer than the hospital room. She tentatively sat up, prepared to feel dizzy or nauseous, but she felt neither. Encouraged, she swung her feet over the side of the bed and stood, reaching up automatically to push her hair back but feeling only stubble. They must have shaved her head whilst she was in the hospital.

There was a mirror on the back of the door and she studied her reflection, which had the luxury of being almost familiar, though the red stubble covering her scalp and the strange clothes she'd stolen made her feel like an imposter. But the pale blue eyes were still the same, even if they were accentuated by dark circles. She absently touched the reflection, before checking her left shoulder but there were no signs that they had even noticed the- what had it been? A chip of some sort? A birthmark? She didn't remember what she was looking for, and for all she knew she'd been a prisoner long enough for it to be removed and for the spot to heal over. She reached out a hand and tested the door. Not locked. She absently scratched her right wrist, wondering why it itched.

Having established that she could get out, she chose not to. Instead she studied the room for clues to where she'd landed. The room itself was sparsely furnished. There was a chair on one side of the bed, with fresh clothes. On the other side, there was a table with a lamp. Under the window was a small bookcase crammed with books made of paper. She pulled one off randomly and studied the cover. It took her a minute to recognise the characters. English? Was she on Earth? It wasn't how she pictured it at all. Her father had insisted on speaking English at home, switching back and forth with an ease that she envied. Her father. She grabbed at the memory only to have it slip away. Why couldn't she remember anything about her life before the hospital?

A rap on the door startled her and she turned to see it open slowly.

"Ah, you're awake." The woman smiled at her and sat down carefully on the disordered bed.

She felt suddenly embarrassed. She should have made the bed before anyone came in, even if the woman didn't seem to care. "Hi," she said hesitantly. "I- thank you for taking me in."

"You do speak English, then? I wasn't sure. I'm Sarah Jane Smith. You can call me Sarah Jane. And you are?"

The girl suspected that Sarah Jane was keeping her sentences simple, to make sure she was understood and she was grateful for it. "I don't remember." Her voice faltered. "I don't remember much of anything, just that I had to get away. I think- I should know you? Do I know you?" She realised she was babbling so she bit her lip to stop herself.

"As far as I know we've never met before. But you might have heard my name somewhere." Sarah Jane laid a hand on the girl's arm. "You're safe now. But if you can't remember your own name, we'll have to come up with one. How do you feel about Lauren?"

She turned the name over in her mind. It felt _almost_ right, but- once again she couldn't make the connection. "Lauren will be good. Fine. Is that right?"

"Yes." Sarah Jane smiled at her. "I thought you might like a wash before breakfast. You were out for about eighteen hours. Not surprising, considering the drugs they'd poured into your system."

It took Lauren a moment to absorb this, so she nodded to cover her confusion. "Thank you- for- for everything. You didn't have to do this."

"This is what I do. Taking in strays. Helping people who need help. Now come along and I'll show you how to work the taps. They're probably different to what you're used to." Sarah Jane picked up the clothes from the chair and led her out the door.

* * *

The temperature controls were strange to her, but she managed, and she did feel better with a shower and clean clothes. As she'd been instructed, once she was dressed, she went downstairs and found Sarah Jane in the kitchen, which was as old-fashioned as the bathroom to her eyes.

Sarah Jane took one look at her and smiled ruefully. "I was afraid of that. Once Rani gets home from school, I'll take you shopping and get you some things that fit."

Lauren laughed, startling herself. The trousers - Sarah Jane called them jeans - ended a bit above her ankles, though it was clear they weren't supposed to. Thankfully the shirt was stretchy rather than tailored but it just barely brushed the waist of the jeans. "These are yours?" she asked, though she already knew the answer. The woman was short, and Lauren had the sense she was tall for her age. "You don't have to get me new things- I can wear-"

But Sarah Jane was already shaking her head. "I can't send you home until you remember where you came from, which means you're going to need to look and act like you belong here. The accent's okay- we get people from all over here, but you'll have to have proper clothes and you'll have to go to school if you're still here after half-term. Rani's father's a headmaster, you see, and he lives across the road, so _I'll_ get into trouble if I don't send you. Don't worry. Clyde and Rani will help you over the worst of it."

Lauren might have protested if she could have found the words. But she understood about fitting in and the necessity of not drawing attention to oneself. Instead, she took refuge in a practical question. "When does Rani return from school?"

"In a few hours. Meanwhile, we might as well have some lunch."

* * *

Rani supposed that it wasn't unexpected that Sarah Jane would want to get the new girl clothing, especially when she saw her wearing Sarah Jane's jeans. What bothered her was how quickly the girl had settled into her new life. Despite her claim that she couldn't remember the slightest bit of her old life, she didn't hesitate in the slightest when Sarah Jane called out "Lauren" when she was distracted by a display of electronics in a shop window. After what Ruby White had done, Rani wasn't ready to trust anyone who insinuated themselves in Sarah Jane's life that quickly. At least, Sarah Jane had had the sense to invite her along for this shopping trip, so Rani could keep an eye on them.

"Sarah Jane said your father was the headmaster of your school. That must be strange." Lauren spoke English with a slight accent that Rani couldn't place. If Sarah hadn't said otherwise, she would have wondered if the other girl was human. "She said I must go there if she can't get me home before the end of half-term, whenever that might be."

"Half-term is next weekend," Rani found herself explaining patiently. "Didn't you go to school where you came from? What was that like?" Do you really have amnesia or are you faking it?

"I don't remember. There was this woman-." Lauren froze, but before Rani could jump on this, the other girl added, "I hate this. When I'm not thinking about it, stuff slips out but the moment I realise what I'm doing, I lose it. And nothing seems to fit." She tilted her head and looked at the other girl. "Keep asking me questions, please. Maybe I'll remember where I came from. I can't even remember my dad's name or what he looks like," Lauren added plaintively.

"And your mum?" Sarah Jane asked. It was a reasonable enough question, but Rani thought there was something odd about the way she asked it, like she was downplaying how eager she was to hear the answer.

"I-" Lauren gave Sarah Jane an odd look that Rani couldn't interpret. "I don't _know_. I think she might have had red hair. Maybe."

Rani wasn't sure Sarah Jane could interpret it either, but they'd reached Rani's favourite shop and talk turned to clothing.

* * *

"Rani and Clyde, you go round the back. Lauren and I will go in from the front," Sarah Jane instructed and off they went.

"What is with that girl?" Clyde asked Rani the moment they were alone. "She's nice enough, but sometimes I get the impression she resents Sarah Jane."

"It's not just me, then," Rani replied. Lauren had still been at 13 Bannerman Road when half-term ended, and Sarah sent her to school as promised. To Rani's relief, she wasn't quite the scholar that Luke was, excelling in science and maths but being completely hopeless about history and English. Evenings and weekends were another matter. It wasn't that Lauren was a nuisance, quite the opposite in fact. She took the alien-hunting thing completely in stride. It was just that she was always _there_. "I think she remembers more of her past than she lets on. And, despite what Sarah Jane's watch said, some of the things she's let slip make me think that she isn't from Earth at all."

"Exactly." Clyde eased open the door and checked his super soaker for about the thirtieth time. "And when she does let stuff slip out, she contradicts herself. She's biding her time, but for what?"

"I haven't the slightest idea." Rani turned down the corridor and cautiously made her way checking each door in turn on her side whilst Clyde checked the other side.

"There she is," Lauren called out and sure enough the Slitheen came racing down the corridor with Sarah Jane and Lauren in hot pursuit.

As one, Clyde and Rani raised their super soakers and fired.

"Ick. You could have warned me that was going to happen." Lauren frowned down at the green goo that now covered her from head to toe.

"It's a hazard of the job," Clyde replied cheerfully.

Lauren just looked at him for a moment, then calmly walked over and shook herself, splattering Clyde with green droplets and causing Rani and Sarah Jane to burst into laughter.

It wasn't until later, when Lauren had showered and changed into clean clothes, and the four of them were sitting in the attic, sharing a pizza and watching _Firefly_ at Clyde's insistence, that Rani realised she was starting to like the younger girl, though she still didn't trust her.


	6. One Night Before Demons Run

# Story

The dining hall was almost empty when Story entered. Not surprising. It was the middle of a shift. People were either working or sleeping or doing other tasks. There were a few clusters of acolytes around some of the tables and River and her Doctor were doing that coy flirting thing they did over by the fruit.

In retrospect, she should have just avoided them, but it never occurred to her. Instead she went right up and asked, "I don't suppose you'd consider getting a room. Or at least moving so that I can get an apple." She could be tactful enough when she wanted to be, but she'd never seen the point of tact with the Doctor, when hitting him over the head with a cricket bat barely got his attention.

Maybe her tone had been too sharp. She didn't know. All she knew was that suddenly they were both glaring at her as though she'd said something horribly offensive before returning to their flirtation. She sighed, and reached around them to get the apple but couldn't quite grab one. She tried again. "I don't suppose you could stop making gooey eyes at each other long enough to pass me one of the apples."

The Doctor had the audacity to look offended. "You could say please." He was smiling, as if he found the whole thing funny.

"You could take your public displays of affection elsewhere." She sighed again. "Please could you pass me an apple?" She didn't know why she let him rile her, but he always did.

As though he could read her mind, he asked, "Are you going to yell at me some more if I don't? I've never understood why you hate me so much." He sounded more curious than angry, but Story wasn't in the mood for his nonsense.

"I don't hate you. I just don't like you much." Story didn't bother looking to River for help. River thought the Doctor walked on water. "And right now I'm trying to get something to eat before I go back to work and you happen to be in the way." She tried to control her voice, but she could feel this conversation escalating out of control. "Just give me an apple and you can get back to whatever it was you were doing."

To her surprise, River reached behind the Doctor and grabbed an apple and threw it to her. It was possible the other woman had just done this to get rid of Story, but it was hard to tell with River some days. River reminded Story of her own mother sometimes, in that they were prone to throwing lit matches into stockpiles of explosives just to see what happened.

"Thank you." Story took her apple and her sandwich and walked over to one of the tables. She had no desire to hear what they were saying about her. River had accused her more than once of being jealous but that wasn't it. At least not in the way River meant. Cinderella in the ashes, wanting to go to the ball, she thought, but Cinderella had been the youngest of three, and she had never liked balls or gowns and glass slippers sounded incredibly uncomfortable. She tried to put it out of her mind as she ate. She had work to do.

* * *

"I'm back," Story said with a smile, as she waved Charliss off to his dinner. She carefully moved his microphone out of the way, and sat down in her usual place. "Did you enjoy Charliss' stories?" She was gratified at the cheering, especially when Charliss turned back to wave at the crowd. "I'm sorry that there will be a dearth of Mad Dukes and Mad Scientists in my stories, but he'll be back tomorrow, if you like that sort of thing."

Story took a sip of her water. Every storyteller knew that know just when to pause was as important as the story itself. And then, without preamble or introduction, she started her first story.

# The Journalist

> As you know, the Herald had many adventures and many strange things happen to her throughout her life. But while some of them might have happened to other people, had they been in the right place at the right time, some could only have happened to her.
> 
> "Don't open the door," the caller had warned in an agitated voice. The Herald might not have taken any notice, except for two things. One was the caller's identity - she claimed to be the Herald's future self, calling via a Blinovitch link. Now we all know that that's only a theoretical idea, with no basis in fact, but then they also say that during the last great Time War, the Herald was the one who kept the mad Lord Rassilon from destroying the Earth's timeline by beating him at his own game, so if anyone _could_ do it, it would be she. The other, and this was the sticking point, was that what had started as polite knock at the door had turned into a loud banging by the time the call had broken off and it wouldn't stop.

"I thought you said there wouldn't be any mad Lords."

Story looked straight at the heckler. Clyde Langer, though he wouldn't have met her yet. "I said no mad Dukes or Scientists. I never said anything about Lords. Besides, he doesn't come into this story much. What he did is done, just not forgotten yet. Some things never are." With an expertise borne of long practice, she picked up the story before she was derailed again.

> Dropping the phone, the Herald considered her options. She'd had to bolt on short notice before, but not from her own home in London. However, paranoia served her well, so before she realised she'd made a decision, she was heading for her bedroom. She grabbed the go bag that she hadn't bothered to unpack when she'd got back from Afghanistan, and opened the window sash, dropping the bag to the ground below and then following after. She didn't land as smoothly as she would have liked, but at least her fall was cushioned by the flowerbed below. There was a reason she'd taken a ground floor flat. Dusting the dirt off her trousers, she slung the backpack on, and headed at a more sedate pace through the alley towards the road.
> 
> It wasn't long before she reached her destination. Depositing a few coins in the donation box as she entered, she headed for the stairs closest to her goal. When she reached the main exhibit halls, she slowed even further, ostensibly studying the exhibits, but actually mulling over the conversation she'd had with the woman who claimed to be her future self – who had been her future self. The tells had all been there. Everything had been significant – every word, every pause, every digression. Her future self might have been fretting that she'd be overheard, but she – they had both known that it was being monitored. Whomever had been banging on her door had been sent because the roses had failed to engender the false sense of security their sender had intended.
> 
> She'd felt it on the wind. Being the de facto travellers' aid station for wayward aliens meant you heard things. She'd thought it all over, the whole sprawling mess of it from that phone call to the siege of Heartshaven. She'd hoped the ending of the Time War had wiped it all clean. A fresh start. She'd been wrong. There was still someone after her, trying to catch her at just the right moment in her timeline. Someone who could- who would order the siege of an entire planet to keep her from interfering.
> 
> The Herald had been through this before. The Council of Eight, Faction Paradox, even the Time Agency once. Not to mention Rassilon himself. They had all tried to trap her and they had all failed. Now there was a new enemy to face and she knew nothing about them. Better the enemy you know-
> 
> Stopping, the Herald pretended to study a case of knives more carefully. Her goal was in view, but there were so many people around, she had to wait for just the right moment. It didn't take long. The group of tourists moved on to the next room at the same time as the American couple asked the guard a question. The Herald took advantage of his distraction to slip into the next room, despite the signs that said it was being prepared for a future exhibit.
> 
> The Doctor had told her once that most museums and libraries had places like these, rarely noticed by aficionados or workers. She'd never told him that she'd found this one as a child, wandering away from her aunt, bored by a conversation about ancient medical practices. Traces of exhibits from timelines since erased or not yet written. It looked like any other installation in transition, with one set of objects being taken down and another being put up. The Herald absently picked up a brochure for the former and slipped it in her bag – a historical look at the Pandorica in myth and legend – one never knew when such things would come in handy.
> 
> But it was the upcoming exhibit that held her attention. _The Herald and The Exemplar Cras: The Journals of the Mad Duke Giuliano_. The Herald muttered a curse under her breath. She'd known about the legend but had quite deliberately ignored it. "Best not to know too much about one's future," the Doctor always said, and she'd taken that to heart. But there was always the temptation with time travel to try to make things better (and for better, read more favourable for the time traveller in question). Most of the people who interfered with her life tried to get her to take a more active role; one or two had tried to kill her, all because of what was in that book. A book that should be safely in the hands of a small secret cult at this point in time, not plastered on the walls of the National Museum. She stood still for a moment, debating her next move. It was clearly a lure, meant to scare her; make her reveal herself before her enemy did it for her. She would not bite. But it might be a good idea to disappear for a little while.
> 
> The Herald left the room as cautiously as she'd entered it, meandering slowly to the stairs that would lead her down to the shop. She'd spent less than five minutes in the room, hopefully she hadn't been missed.
> 
> The shop occupied several alcoves in the large centre section and the Herald took her time here too, examining every display. She brushed past the ginger-haired man paying for a book at the till with a murmured "excuse me." He didn't know her yet, but she remembered him from Rassilon's tomb.
> 
> She knew two things now. Her opponent wasn't afraid to make bold moves, and they were from the future. Another chess game. Well, she hadn't been a pawn in a long, long while. She glanced around. Anyone in the museum could be the opposition.
> 
> The Herald could feel eyes following her as she headed for the exit, so she made a point of turning into one of the galleries on the side and slowly working her way through the exhibit, being careful not to speak to anyone and choosing a different way out than she'd originally intended. Once back on the pavement, she breathed easier. It didn't matter who had been behind it all and if they had meant to lull her into a false sense of security, it had failed miserably. Plan B was already in effect.
> 
> There was a bookshop in walking distance. She walked at a steady but even pace. Running screamed to observers that one had something to be running from. She passed the TARDIS without a second glance. It wasn't likely to leave just yet. Then the road curved and she saw the trails of neon purple slime and people screaming and running away. Bardarian Slime beasts. That made the day just perfect.
> 
> It wasn't long until she spotted the first one. The redhead from the museum was trying to aim a disruptor pistol at it, but it kept wriggling and he kept missing. And then, just as she got close enough to see, he hit it square, and it exploded all over her. She didn't miss this at all.
> 
> It didn't matter. Contact had been made. It only took a little persuading for him to let her into the TARDIS to change her clothes. When the time came to return home, she would contrive to lose a day or two. There was nothing better than time travel to shake pursuers off her trail.

People had trickled in as Story was speaking (and some had trickled right back out again as they realised she wasn't Charliss or Loisa, or Micol or that their friends weren't in here or they'd misjudged the time). Some had even stayed, whether they'd planned to or not.

Jo, Santiago and Rani claimed the seats Clyde had saved them in the second row - she'd seen Clyde helping out in the dining hall earlier, but didn't know what the other two had found to do. Harry Sullivan and Martha Jones came in, clearly fresh from the infirmary and joined Sarah in the back. Story had spotted the other Sarah, once or twice, avoiding her younger self. The eldest had to be here too, with Clyde and co., but Story hadn't seen her yet, though the Doctor she'd come with had been listening in the wings.

Story bit back a laugh as she realised just how many people were avoiding other people. Sarah and River both had good reasons for not being seen, and Story had no doubt that Clyde, Santiago and Rani had been warned against speaking to Sarah's younger selves. She didn't know if the Doctors were avoiding each other, but they seemed to each be taking on different tasks. The one with the long scarf was repairing electrical equipment damaged by the bomb, the fair-haired one was overseeing the infirmary and the bouncy puppy was up on the roof rewiring the solar panels.

Just as she was ready to start again, she saw Tegan and Nyssa dragging in a clearly reluctant Turlough and a slight smile crossed her lips. Once they'd found seats, she began.

"A few announcements before we start. First of all, you will be glad to know that while there are three people still in critical condition, there were no casualties. Please check the monitors for alternate routes around the damaged areas. We've got construction crews working to repair the damage, but it _is_ winter out there, so we've had to use the fire doors block off additional sections to preserve heat. Do not attempt to get personal belongings. If there is something in your quarters that you absolutely need, please fill out the appropriate form and submit it to the construction staging area in Antes Hall in the west wing. We've got the electrical systems up again, but it's a patchwork job, and there will be power fluctuations." That got a laugh, as the lights had flickered right on cue. "The temporary infirmary has been set up in the gymnasium with whatever medical equipment and supplies we could salvage. The shields are holding now, and with any luck they'll continue to hold. In the meantime, this is one of the safest places in the castle, so I think it's time for another story."

# The Time Agent

> He'd been chasing her ever since she was a child. The Herald knew so much more now than she had back then. She knew he was a Time Agent and she knew or guessed what his orders were. Somewhere some bureaucrat or committee in the Time Agency had decided that if they controlled the Herald, they would be able to control history. They weren't the first group to think that and they wouldn't be the last. Nor were they very far from the truth.
> 
> She had always been a pivotal point in the grand scheme of things. If she hadn't existed we'd be living in a very different present. But when the future starts to affect the past, odd things happen and her timeline had looped and knotted around itself in ways that no one could trace, except, perhaps, for the woman herself.
> 
> It was during her Bannerman Road years that their paths crossed for the last time before he left the Time Agency. There were a few missions she was unwilling to involve her young charges in, and this was one of them. The Judoon had contacted her about a suspected smuggling operation and she had agreed to investigate and report back.
> 
> The office complex had been built and abandoned three years before during the economic crash. It didn't take the Herald long to realise that she wasn't the only one there.
> 
> * * *
> 
> He spotted her around a corner coming his way. It was a T-junction, so either way she turned he'd have a shot. Ducking behind an open door he waited until just the right moment, and from ten feet away, it was unlikely that any of his six shots missed. He never understood why her last words as she stared at him were "Who's there?"
> 
> He holstered his now empty gun and walked over. She had fallen backwards and was unresponsive. The Time Agent tried to tell himself that the universe would be better for her death, but he wondered why he didn't feel happier about it. Not that it mattered. He'd fulfilled his mission and now it was time to return home.
> 
> He considered notifying someone of her presence, but that might compromise his own involvement in the affair. In the end he left her where she lay and returned to the Time Agency to make his report. Or at least tried to. His vortex manipulator had stopped working, or rather it worked for a second, and he got a sense of temporal chaos as time itself started to collapse.
> 
> He didn't have time to think. All he had was his gut which was screaming "fix this now!" He tried the vortex manipulator again, thankful for the ripple effect that gave him a few minutes grace. This time he attempted to go back in time, rather than forward. He couldn't get back further than an hour, but that was all he needed. Enough time to acquire a bulletproof vest from the Time Agency's stashes and leave it in the Herald's car with a note. A note that would give her the trigger phrase to wipe this mission from his memory.
> 
> * * *
> 
> The Herald was incredibly sore when she woke. She wasn't surprised. Bulletproof vests didn't prevent against broken bones caused by the impact of six bullets shot at close range.
> 
> The man who had shot her was just standing there staring at her.
> 
> Despite the pain, the Herald stood. "Why did you do that?"
> 
> Instead of answering he stared blankly at her. "How did you survive?"
> 
> "Bulletproof vests are wonderful things," Sarah said lightly. "There was something I was supposed to tell you. 'This will not stand.'"
> 
> The Time Agent went very still. It was an order from the highest reaches of the Time Agency, only given when they crossed a line; when their own attempts at temporal manipulation caused damage that could not be contained. His orders had been countermanded on the grounds that if he continued in his present course, time itself would be compromised. That could only mean one thing. She was exactly what the Orbus Postremo claimed she would become. He saluted her and pressed a button on his vortex manipulator. He would report back to the agency and all memories of the operation would be purged from his mind so that the infection would be contained and time would heal.

And right now, if all had gone according to plan, he was piloting the Last Centurion to Demons Run. Like the Doctor, the Herald had called in some of her markers. But there were some things Story could tell her audience and other things that they didn't need to know just yet. Especially not when there was a chance that their enemy hadn't limited herself to Flesh spies. Not the Silence, for they avoided places that had once been infested with Tractators, one of the reasons the Order had chosen this planetoid as their base. But Madame Kovarian had human/humanoid agents too and how would they know until it was too late?

She announced the intermission, and took the list of announcements from the clerk who'd been patiently waiting in the back and considered. Five stories down, four to go, all wrapped up in three thousand years of oral tradition carefully nursed by the Herald and her people so that they strayed neither too close to nor too far from the truth. But there were a few people in the audience who would understand what she was saying, and she was especially mindful of the Doctor listening in the wings, and one other sitting in the audience, enthralled.

Story glanced down at the page she held in her hands. At the top was a note in Sarah's familiar handwriting, in a language long dead and lost. _The barrage got one of the satellites. The time lock was damaged._ This was not good news. Until it could be fixed, they wouldn't be able to take down the barrier that had gone up at the start of the siege. The time lock had been set to form a shield around the planet - a dead zone in the shape of a Dyson sphere where any ship that entered would be stuck in stasis until it was unlocked, so that Madame Kovarian couldn't send reinforcements. But now it couldn't be unlocked, and there were enemy ships caught in between that and their blast shields.

But her audience had returned, so she stood, no sign of any of this on her face. There were four Doctors here, plus Sarah and River Song. Somebody would figure out a way to fix it. Story read out the other announcements, none of which were anywhere near as dire and then started her last story of the night. Someone had asked for the story of the Herald's first meeting with the American Marine she'd been working with during the Year That Never Was, and it was as good a story as any to tell right now.

# The Marine

> They say that after the Herald returned from her adventures with the Doctor, she was like an adrenalin junkie suffering withdrawal, and so, with all of space and time lost to her, she started looking for adventures on Earth-that-was. And that wasn't hard for someone in her line of work. Not then. For Earth-that-was was a patchwork of warring countries and it was easy for her to switch from being UNIT's pet journalist to a war correspondent who didn't mind danger. It didn't take her long to build up a reputation as a fearless reporter who "told it like it was". Perhaps her most challenging story involved a troop of Marines, soldiers she'd been assigned to shadow, a time-travelling archaeologist, and damaged warp drive that had crashed in the middle of a war zone.
> 
> Like many wars, the reasons given were both incredibly complex and unbelievably simple and like many things, the truth is lost to history. In this case the _simple_ reason involved the possession of fossil fuels at a time when Earth-that-was was just starting to realise that those resources wouldn't last forever. Complicating this were historical feuds over land and religion, the ambitions of politicians and a morass of social and economic pressures and there is no way of telling now what the true cause might have been. In the end, does it matter who was fighting? What mattered was that the warp drive had landed in a war zone and become unstable.
> 
> But I'm getting ahead of myself. The Herald, who wasn't known as the Herald then, had pulled a few strings in order to get the okay to shadow the Marine troop and the Marines, as you might expect, were not thrilled at the prospect. The front lines of what had become a nasty war were no place for a non-combatant, or so they claimed. The Commanding Officer, who had over a foot on her, decided to press the issue by grabbing her wrists.
> 
> The Herald glared at him. "What do you think you're doing?" She'd expected subtle harassment based on her gender or her lack of military training, or even her nationality which was different to theirs.
> 
> "I'm being gentle. What would you do if an enemy soldier tried something like this?" He wasn't angry or mocking, just curious.
> 
> She smiled. A minute later the Herald had the man pinned with his own knife pricking his throat. "I don't pretend I could have done that if you'd expected it, but I can take care of myself."
> 
> The CO was silent for a moment, then, grudgingly, ordered a sniper from the unit to arrange for her to be issued a handgun and trained in its use on the grounds that their enemies might care less that she was a journalist than that she was a woman.
> 
> The man who was assigned to train her was their best armsman, a Marine sniper with many years of experience. A man who would be incredibly resistant to being profiled by the major news magazine that had got her placed with this particular troop.
> 
> "Are you going to grumble about my presence too?" she asked, preferring to get such things out in the open rather than let them fester.
> 
> "Not if you're as good with a handgun as you are at using someone's own weight against them."
> 
> "I'm better with a rifle," the Herald replied. "I don't have much experience with moving targets, and I'd rather not carry a gun at all, but I chose to come here and if that's a condition of staying, I'll do so."
> 
> A nod. "I think we'll get along just fine." He found one of the lightest guns they had and put her to the test. A few shots proved that if anything, she was understating her abilities. Not quite up to Marine training, but she knew to hold the gun with both hands, understood how to cope with recoil and put one of the six shots in the bullseye and all six made it into the target. He'd seen raw recruits who couldn't manage that much.
> 
> A fortnight of travelling with the troop proved that the Herald was no fragile flower. She took her share of chores, carried her own gear and never complained about the sand that got into everything. Or at least no more than the rest of the company. She might not have trained as a Marine, but she did her best not to be a disruption. Her friendship with the Marine sniper grew slowly. They were both prickly and self-contained but he found himself teaching her how to whittle and she repaired his comm whenever he got frustrated and threw it at something. Eventually, she even agreed to keep him out of the article, except for the most oblique of mentions.
> 
> They'd set up camp just outside a small village. Fighting could be heard a little too close for anyone's comfort, so when the Herald said she wanted to interview people in the village, her sniper friend first refused and then, when he realised that she'd agree and then slip away when he wasn't looking, insisted he come along with her. This became a bit awkward when she veered away from the village and into the desert towards the fighting without any explanation. It was only then that he realised that if the Herald had actually been planning to interview non-combatants, she wouldn't have signed out a rifle before they left.
> 
> The Marine noticed the dull hum before he saw the other woman. Warily, he looked around. It didn't sound like any weapon or vehicle he knew, which could only mean one thing- the enemy had some weapon they didn't know about. He was about to say something when he realised the Herald was heading straight for the other woman.
> 
> "What happened?" The strange woman stared at the device in her hands, ignoring the question so the Herald pulled out her own scanner. "What idiot dropped a malfunctioning warp engine in the middle of a war zone?" That got the second woman's attention.
> 
> Introductions were made and credentials established and the two women started an animated discussion of how to dispose of it safely. It was at this point that the Marine decided both women were mad, but as he wasn't willing to leave them so close to the front lines, he contented himself with scanning the hills for enemy snipers, at least until he realised that they were trying to triangulate the source of the hum. He followed them up a rise in the terrain and there it was, whatever it was.
> 
> The area around the object was _blurry_ in a way that couldn't possibly be caused by the heat.
> 
> "We can't even get to it to shut it down," the Archaeologist said. They'd be fried by the escaping energy before they got anywhere near it.
> 
> The Herald peered at the diagram. "We don't need to get near it. We just need to destroy the wires that are sending power to the core. Here, here and here." She jabbed her finger at the diagram. "The catch is that we have to hit them all at exactly the same time or the thing will go unstable and cause a crater that would take out this entire country. How are you with that blaster?"
> 
> "Crack shot," the Archaeologist grinned.
> 
> Now this the Marine understood. Glancing at the object in front of them and then at the diagram, he did some calculations in his head, then directed them each to a spot. "On my mark. Now."
> 
> Two shots and a sizzle rang out across the desert and the field just vanished, leaving a piece of dead machinery at its centre. With a nod, the two women approached it, had a whispered conversation and then the Herald returned to where the Marine was standing. As he watched, the Archaeologist disappeared with the machine.
> 
> "She'll see that it gets disposed of properly," the Herald said, "and we'd best be getting back to camp. We don't want to get caught out here in the dark."
> 
> The Marine just shrugged before turning back the way they came. Sometimes it was better not to ask.

Story stood and stretched. "Sorry, Loisa. I didn't mean to run over."

"It's a good story," the other woman said with a smile. "One of my favourites. Now shoo. You should get some rest. You'll be busy tomorrow."

Story took her at her word. A quick stop for a bite to eat and thence to bed. At least that was the plan. She was unprepared for the man leaning against the door of her bedroom. "Vislor Turlough. How did you get here before me?" Silly question, and it wasn't until it escaped her lips that she remember that she shouldn't have known his name at all. She'd stopped in the dining hall and he'd probably come straight up. A better question would be how did he know where she slept?

"What better place to find a girl named Story than in a tower," Turlough said. "And there's only one way you could know the stories you're telling." He smiled idly. "Don't worry, I'll keep your secret. Though, if I've figured it out, I imagine Sarah has too."

A nervous giggle escaped her and she winced. Story never giggled. "She needs some sense of what's to come or she's never going to survive it. But- what gave me away? I know what stories you heard and you barely know her- at least, not yet."

He reached over and touched her cheek. "Try looking in a mirror sometime. And set your mind to the question of how to fix the timelock."

"I'm just the storyteller."

"And I'm just an ordinary British schoolboy." He shrugged. "We are what circumstances make of us. I learnt that during the war."

He was so young. That war couldn't have been more than a few years ago for him and he'd been sent into exile when he was even younger than she was now. She didn't dare talk to him any longer, no matter how much she wanted to, lest she let something slip. "I should really get some rest."

He nodded as though he'd expected that. "I need to pull Sarah away from patching the electrical system. She won't risk running into her younger self, so she's just working non-stop." That sounded like Sarah.

"You like her."

"You sound surprised." He shrugged. "But unlike Sarah, I'm not keen to know my future before it happens. I've had a few bad experiences along that line." He brushed her cheek with his hand again. "Get some sleep and- take care of yourself," he added belatedly and a little awkwardly.

"Will do." She mimed a salute before entering her room and closing the door behind her, half-wishing he weren't quite so clever but knowing deep down that she was glad he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Timing:
> 
>  _The Journalist_ : post _The Blinovitch Link_ , right before the Fifth Doctor and crew appear at Heartshaven  
>  _The Time Agent_ : Jack: pre The Empty Child, Sarah: post Goodbye, Sarah Jane Smith  
>  _The Marine_ : Gibbs: pre NCIS; River Song: post Heartshaven; Sarah: post Train-Flight, pre Downtime


	7. Interlude 3

It wasn't that Lauren didn't like Rani and Clyde. She did, mostly. She just got the feeling that they didn't like her. The kids at home had been the same, she thought, though like all of her memories, it slipped away when she tried to focus on it. She'd learnt to hold her own, to get along when she needed to and to defend herself when she must, but when they paired off in twos and threes, she'd always been the odd one out. Still, she counted it a blessing when she could walk home from school alone with her own thoughts.

Her memory had been reduced to fragments. She still didn't know what they'd been trying to do to her but sometimes it felt like she had two sets of memories jammed into her head. Best not to even think about that. She still didn't remember being taken or know who had taken her. This was as safe a place as any while she put the pieces together. They'd just have to tolerate her until she figured it all out and found the teleporter Sarah Jane had taken from her. Then she could go home to her real parents, whomever they were, and let them deal with the people who had kidnapped her.

"Lauren, wait," Rani's voice cut into her thoughts and she automatically stopped.

"What's up?" Lauren gave the other girl a quick smile, but her guard was up just the same.

"I want to talk to you." Rani grabbed Lauren's arm and pulled her into Sarah Jane's garden. Sarah Jane's car wasn't in the drive. "What are you up to? What have you done to Sarah Jane?"

"I haven't done anything." Lauren was bewildered and defensive but she tried to keep her voice calm and steady. "Why would you think I did anything?"

"I think you've been lying to us. Sarah Jane's been acting oddly since you showed up and the last time that happened it was an alien who tried to steal her life." Clyde appeared at Rani's elbow.

"She said I was human," Lauren reminded them both. "She'd know, wouldn't she?" She forced the panicky feeling down. If she'd been certain that Sarah Jane were on her side, it would be one thing, but she wasn't sure, and that could cause all sorts of other problems.

"Would she? You could be wearing a biodamper," Rani replied.

"Where?" Lauren asked. "I wasn't wearing any jewellery when I arrived. I'm not wearing anything that Sarah Jane didn't give me. Where could I hide a biodamper?" She remembered the itchy spot on her wrist, now healed, and wondered.

Clyde gave her a wary look. "I suppose you're right. But remember that we're keeping an eye on you." He pointed to his eyes and then to her to emphasise his point. "Hurt her and you'll have us to deal with."

Lauren wished she felt confident enough to flounce off, but she did manage a snappy salute and a "Yes, sir, Clyde, sir," before unlocking the door to the house and holding it for them. She let the other two go ahead up the stairs before following slowly. "I'm going to change out of my uniform. I'll be right up." She doubted they cared. Surely, if anyone cared what had happened to her, they would have found her by now.

She hung up her clothes as she changed. Lauren didn't understand the school custom of being as untidy as possible whilst still keeping to the uniform rules. A memory slipped up unbidden. Her father teaching her to tie a tie. Except she didn't remember ever seeing her father wearing a tie.

Lauren dressed quickly and neatly. Her hair had grown out so that she didn't look so strange to her own eyes. It wasn't as though she'd ever worn it long. Taking a deep breath she glanced over her room to make sure everything was in its place before heading upstairs, hoping she wouldn't be subjected to another round of questioning.

* * *

"She's lying about something." Clyde dropped his backpack on the sofa before stripping off his coat and tie and dropping them on top.

Rani frowned. "I doubt we'll get anything from her by harassing her. We'll just have to keep our eyes open- what's that?"

 _That_ was one of the puzzle boxes they'd used as defence against the Trickster's alterations of time. And it was starting to glow.

Clyde and Rani grabbed for it at the same time. There was a roar of wind and then silence.

"Nothing's changed," Clyde said suspiciously, glancing around the attic. "I don't get it."

"Why would something have changed? Have you been playing with the alien artifacts again?" Lauren asked from the doorway. "Mum will be mad if you have."

"Where did your accent go?" Rani blurted out.

"What accent? What on earth are you on about?" Lauren asked as she shoved over Clyde's things and sprawled on the sofa. "Have either of you heard from Mum? I'm starting to worry." She pulled out a mobile that Rani didn't recognise and started tapping out a message at a rapid rate.

Clyde and Rani looked at each other, but before they could say anything Mr Smith announced, "UNIT troop approaching."

Lauren immediately slid off the sofa, her face expressionless and headed for the door. All Clyde and Rani could do was follow her down the stairs.

The troop was approaching as the three teens reached the pavement. Lauren glared at them in much the same way as Sarah Jane had when that Colonel had arrived to let her know about the Doctor's death. "Stay off the property. Mum doesn't want you here."

Mum again. If Rani didn't know any better, she'd think that Lauren thought Sarah Jane was her mother. Which couldn't possibly be true. Sarah Jane had told them that she'd never had any children before Luke, and she wasn't likely to have one now.

To Rani's relief Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart emerged from the car, followed by a man who she recognised from Sarah Jane's photos as Dr Harry Sullivan.

"Lauren, we need to talk. And not out here I think," Dr Sullivan said, a little too gently for anyone's comfort. "Rani, Clyde, you should probably hear this too."

"Fine. But they stay out here." Lauren glared at the troops again. She didn't look at Clyde or Rani as they went into the lounge and her face had returned to the expressionless look she'd had earlier.

Rani looked at Clyde again. "Tell me you're not thinking what I'm thinking."

He caught her hand and murmured, "Sarah Jane."

"Yeah. But why would he cut it so close?" Rani asked quietly, her eyes focused on the Brigadier, Dr Sullivan and Lauren. She carefully closed the door behind her.

"Well?" Lauren's eyes were also watching the Brigadier.

For a former soldier, Rani was surprised at how long it took him to get to the point. Sarah Jane had been investigating something classified and had been shot by an unidentified man. The bullet had nicked an artery and she had died almost instantaneously. Dr Sullivan had been there, and he confirmed that he had done all he could but it had been too late.

"No!" Clyde protested, just as Rani said, "She can't be dead."

Lauren didn't say anything, but when Rani looked over all the colour had drained from her face.

"Lauren, are you alone here in the house?" Dr Sullivan asked.

"Luke's at uni. But Mr Smith is here."

"An intelligent computer is not a proper guardian for a child. Your mum must have made some arrangements," the Brigadier blustered.

"I don't know," Lauren said softly. "It's not like my dad's around." There was a noticeable pause there, but then Lauren continued, "Her Aunt Lavinia's ward lives in California, but maybe it's Josh." She looked dubious. "She must have left a will. Mr Smith might know. Can't I stay here until the will is read?" She sat there, very still and very white and Rani suddenly realised just how young she was.

"Not alone. Not with whomever killed your mother still on the loose," Harry said decisively. "I'll stay tonight. We're working on notifying your brother. Once he gets here, we'll work out a more long-term plan."

Lauren nodded dully.

"We'll stay with you," Rani found herself volunteering. She didn't understand why everyone seemed to think Lauren was Sarah Jane's daughter, but if they left the house, she didn't know if they'd be able to get back in again.

Clyde was quick to back her up. "We should Skype Luke. It might be better coming from us."

Rani nodded dully. This might not be as bad as the future they'd seen when Sarah Jane had gone back and met her parents, but as far as she was concerned, it came too close for her comfort.

To her relief, Dr Sullivan seemed to agree with them. "I know how much she meant to you two. Call your parents and let them know and then we'll work out what to do about dinner."

Both calls were short. There wasn't much to say - Sarah Jane was dead and Lauren needed some familiar faces around.

The Brigadier also made a short call. "It seems, Luke's already been informed. I'm sorry. It might have been better coming from you. He's on his way home. We're trying to get a number for Brendan, but-"

"Mum has it. Upstairs. I'll have Luke call him tonight. He'll want to fly back for the funeral. There are other people we should notify. Has anyone told the Doctor?"

"No way to reach him." The Brigadier harrumphed. "We'll see that he's told as soon as there's a sighting." He stood. "I must be going. There are other people who need to hear the news." He shook hands all around and then stopped to give a last few instructions to Dr Sullivan.

"The Doctor probably can't get through. He couldn't the last time," Clyde said in Rani's ear. "But if we can figure out how to defeat the Trickster, we can fix this."

Rani caught Lauren looking at them suspiciously, so she restrained her answer to a brief nod.

Once the Brigadier left, it was quickly decided that Clyde would cook dinner with Rani's help, while Lauren took Dr Sullivan upstairs to sort out a bed for him.

"We don't even know where to start," Rani said, once they were alone.

"Maybe with her current case. The timing on this was _weird_. And why would the Trickster leave us with resources like Mr Smith?" Clyde moved briskly around the kitchen as he took stock of the possibilities. "Shepherd's pie?"

"Sounds good to me." Then. "I wish the Doctor was here. Everything seems so normal." Rani sat down in one of the chairs and waited to see if Clyde actually let her do anything. "Except Lauren."

"All I can think of is that she showed up earlier and Sarah Jane adopted her the way she did Luke." He expertly browned the mince in a skillet. "What was that?" He'd caught hold of the counter before he lost his balance.

"An earthquake? We don't get earthquakes in England." Rani considered his original question. "Maybe. That might explain the lack of accent - if she's been here longer. But we'll have to be careful. Acting like she's part of the team and all."

"Hopefully, we'll be able to sort this out quickly, defeat the Trickster and get back to a world where Sarah Jane is still alive." There was a crash behind them and both Clyde and Rani froze. "Lauren," Clyde said shakily. "Where did you spring from?"

"Mum left some teacups in her room." Cups that now lay shattered on the floor. "Why do you think the Trickster's involved? What happened?" Her voice rose almost to a screech on the last question. "Please, tell me. Mum can't be dead. She _can't_ ," she added almost hysterically.

Rani went to get the broom and dustpan to give herself time to think whilst Clyde checked on the food. "Keep your voice down. Do you want to have to explain this to Dr Sullivan?" She said in a low voice as she motioned Lauren to sit down at the table.

"No." The mask was back, the hysterical outburst gone as if it had never been. "But I want to help. Whatever you need me to do."

"Where's Dr Sullivan?" Clyde asked bringing over the bowl of mashed potatoes he was stirring.

"Upstairs. Making the bed in the spare room. I was going to go back up after bringing these down, but he said that he'd spent enough years in the navy that he'd have it shipshape in no time." Lauren sat down, hands in her lap. "Mr Smith will know what she was working with. Or she'll have left stuff on her desk in the attic."

"That's a good place to start. Clyde and I were just thinking the same thing. The timing is too close." Rani hesitated. "There's a puzzle box up in the attic. It started glowing just before you came in so we grabbed for it." She hoped that would satisfy the other girl. If Lauren had helped them fight the Trickster before in this reality, then she should understand what that meant.

Lauren nodded. "If Clyde has dinner under control, you and I could go up and look. And he could occupy Dr Sullivan when he comes down."

Rani stared at her. That was actually a good plan. "Clyde? You okay with that?"

"Yeah. One diversion coming right up."

On their way up the stairs, Rani tried to come up with a good excuse for why they were going to the attic, but in the end it wasn't necessary. When they ran into Dr Sullivan on the landing, Lauren muttered a quick excuse about having left her script for the school panto up there and he just told them not to be too long. He did look wary, as though he expected them to burst into tears at any moment. However, while Lauren still looked white as a sheet, and Rani felt a bit shaky as her mind raced through what might happen if they couldn't defeat the Trickster, Rani felt confident that there would be no tears.

Sarah Jane had left her files spread out on her desk. As they reached it the ground shook again. Rani wondered if this was the disaster that Sarah Jane would have prevented if she were still alive. "No wonder she didn't want us involved," Rani said as she read the top file over Lauren's shoulder. It wasn't completely clear from her notes what was going on, but it seemed to involve alien gun-runners. "What?"

"Nothing. Someone walked over my grave. There's something wrong- no, never mind. I've lost it. We've got names. Declan and Malkon Turlough. They sound familiar somehow." Lauren shook her head and Rani suddenly realised that her hair was also much longer than it had been. "Mr Smith, we need you. What can you tell us about the Turloughs?"

"Declan Turlough is a very successful entrepreneur. Not quite in the league of Rupert Murdoch or Josh Townsend, but close. They're due to be in Ealing tonight for a benefit dinner. I believe Sarah Jane was planning to attend." Pictures flashed on the screen. "He's behind the current push for British spaceflight, and Sarah Jane suspected that not all the arms were being sold. She seemed to think he was using British resources to mount an attack on his homeworld, though she hadn't figured out why or what planet."

Rani absently picked up her jacket and Clyde's. "Send the directions to my mobile. To the benefit dinner," she clarified.

"Done."

"Good. We're going to fix this," Lauren said firmly.

They ran into Clyde in the hall. "Did you find anything?"

"It looks like tonight's the night. Where's Dr Sullivan?" Rani said crisply. "Here's your coat. I've got the puzzle box in my pocket, just in case."

"On the phone with the Brigadier. It sounds like he'll be a while. Something about strange activity in the Welsh mountains." Clyde shrugged into his coat and the three of them let themselves out through the front door as quietly as they could.

Lauren was wearing the same scarlet jacket she'd insisted on in the real world - the one that clashed with her hair. Rani resisted the urge to comment on this.

They weren't dressed for a dinner party, but what they were wearing would have to do. They slipped through a service entrance to the banquet hall and found themselves in the kitchen. Standing amongst the pots and pans they considered what to do next.

"Why are you here? This does not concern you." The Trickster's cold voice sent a chill down Rani's spine.

"Of course it concerns us," Lauren snapped before either of the others could react. "You killed my mother. Again. Another bargain, I suppose."

"Collateral damage. She wasn't my target- this time." The Trickster swung around and stared at her. "Oh, it's you. You do realise you don't exist any more? Just an echo of an earlier timeline, clinging to existence. But I could make you real again. Give you the life you should have had."

Lauren stared at him for a moment and then spoke, shakily at first, but growing stronger with every word, "Maybe I'm not real, but if I were, don't you think my parents would have warned me about cloaked figures with no real faces and strange men with dead birds on their heads? And I'd hope I'd have the sense not to give you power over _my_ timeline." The ground shook again. "You're losing control of this reality- is it because I shouldn't be here? Because I am and you're just going to have to cope with it."

"You can do nothing. Declan Turlough will lead his makeshift army to Trion and they will do enough damage to cause the Trion government to retaliate. The resulting war will last a thousand years and in the end both planets will destroy each other."

"No! That's not going to happen. Because we're going to stop you." Clyde glared at the Trickster.

Rani moved closer, standing shoulder to with Clyde. "Don't think we can't. We've done it before."

"And we'll do it again," Lauren added. "There's no way we're going to let you set two planets against each other for your own amusement."

"You are nothing, little girl in a red hood. Just a memory best forgotten. And the rest of you are just nuisances." His laughter hung in the air after he had gone.

"I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that didn't go well at all," Clyde said.

Rani found she agreed with him. "We did learn it wasn't Sarah Jane he was after. I'd say that was very relevant."

Clyde leaned against a wall. "But we still need to stop him. And at least, if it had been Sarah Jane, we might have some clue of who should have died instead. Lauren, are you okay?"

"I don't know. I don't know where any of that came from but I think I was right about my existence destabilising this reality." As if to confirm it, another tremor shook the ground, sending the pots and pans clattering.

"Maybe-" Rani started. "Maybe you're right. You said something when we were looking at Sarah Jane's notes. About something being wrong with what she'd found out."

"I don't know." This Lauren had seemed more sure of herself right up until the confrontation with the Trickster, but now she just looked lost. "I think we need to find the Turloughs."

"But if we don't even know who he's after this time." Clyde headed for the door anyway.

"Do we need to know? There are rules, aren't there? Both the times we've fought him, Sarah Jane had a chance to convince the people that trading their life for hers wasn't a good idea," Rani pointed out, close on his heels.

"Didn't Maria say she talked Andrea out of the deal too? The time you and I don't remember," Lauren added. "So whomever it is is going to show up before the end. And if they don't know how it works, we can tell them. Make them understand the consequences of their actions."

"We need to find them first." Clyde said, narrowly dodging a stack of folding chairs as they were dislodged by another tremor. "I think this is getting worse."

They burst into the banquet hall rather anticlimactically. It was empty except for two blond men at the far side of the hall too intent on their own conversation to notice the teenagers.

"With that Smith woman out of the way we should be..." one of them was saying.

Clyde pressed a finger to his lips and after gesturing to the girls to follow, started moving closer cautiously, hugging the wall in the hopes that they'd escape notice.

"Does this mean we can go home soon?" The younger man checked out his reflection in the mirror and picked an imaginary bit of lint off his dinner jacket. "Back to Trion?"

Spoiled rich boy who knew just what his looks would get him, Rani thought. And his father's an older version of the same. They'd never faced someone who wasn't good at heart, but Rani wasn't sure the two of them had a heart between them.

"Soon enough. I'm not going home without an army. Leave me to rot on this primitive planet, will they?" Another quake made the older man catch at one of the mirrors that lined the wall. "They can't even control this seismic activity." He seemed particularly incensed by this.

Rani was suddenly aware that Lauren was tapping her on the shoulder. Without saying a word, the younger girl pointed at a mirror behind the two men, or more precisely, the man who was becoming visible in the mirror. Rani nodded before getting Clyde's attention.

"What do we do now?" Lauren murmured as the three of them crouched behind a serving trolley.

"I wish I knew," Rani replied.

"I wish I were more surprised, father, but I've been half expecting this." Both of the men in the hall jumped at the voice that emerged from the mirror.

Rani felt Lauren flinch. "Do you know who that is?"

"Vislor Turlough." Lauren shut her mouth tightly, intent on the scene unfolding in front of her.

Rani realised that she wasn't going to get anything out of the other girl, so she did the same.

"So what deal did you make, father? Your exile for mine? Your life for mine?"

"I won't have you judging me." The room was shaking constantly now, and Declan Turlough was gripping one of the other mirrors tightly to stay upright. It rather ruined the effect.

"No, of course not. You had Malkon to protect and as you told me once, he was everything I could never be. Never mind that he survived without you. Better, in fact." Vislor Turlough's tone was mocking and Rani couldn't help but think that that wasn't the wisest course of action, even if it was satisfying to see the distaste the red-haired man was showing as he looked over his younger brother.

Lauren suddenly burst out from their hiding place. "You have to convince him to break the deal. That will defeat the Trickster and set things right."

This caused the two men in the hall to start yelling things like "what are you doing here?" and "how dare you?" but as Rani was accustomed to such reactions, she ignored them. What she couldn't ignore was the sudden wind that signified the Trickster's arrival. Did he look more stressed than usual? Rani wasn't sure, but it was clear that he was having trouble holding this reality stable.

"Don't pay any attention to her. She's just an echo of something long gone." The Trickster looked at Declan Turlough. "We had a deal. I trust you're not thinking of breaking it."

Meanwhile, the man in the mirror was staring thoughtfully at Lauren as though he were trying to remember who she was. "I do know that, but thanks. The problem's going to be convincing him that my life is worth the sacrifice." He nodded towards his father. "The Trickster might have won this round."

"You're not giving up are you?" To Rani's surprise, Declan Turlough seemed rather amused by this turn of events. "You never were a quitter, Vislor. Arden learnt that well enough when he rammed that charge of treason through. Not that I thought Deela was worth it, but you were young and she was pretty, if not terribly bright. How is she, by the way?"

"Dead," Turlough replied crisply. "After I was exiled, she found another boy her daddy wouldn't approve of and it ended. Badly."

"I'm not surprised. I was worried though, that her behaviour at the trial might make you do something idiotic," his father said. "You were a bit dazzled by her. You returned to Trion, then."

"I travelled for a while with a friend. We found Malkon on Sarn as it was on the verge of planetary catastrophe and I contacted Trion in an attempt to rescue the natives. We were able to get most of them off the planet." Turlough shrugged. "I knew I'd have to go back to Trion with Malkon, but things are better there now."

Rani didn't understand why the elder Turlough felt the need to grill his son, or why it was taking so long. Especially when the ground just didn't want to keep still.

"You're not taking his word for it, are you, Dad?" Malkon, forgotten in the background, blurted out.

"What reason has he to lie? And it was my agreement not yours, Malkon. A deal I'm now breaking." The man turned to the Trickster. "You played on my need to save my infant son, but my life alone is not worth that of my eldest."

"No, you can't-" the Trickster shouted, but it was already too late. Winds swirled and suddenly the banquet hall was gone and the three teenagers were back in the attic.

"No tremors," Clyde commented.

"Why would there be tremors?" Lauren asked, not looking up from her history homework.

"She doesn't remember, Clyde," Rani said softly. "She didn't touch the puzzle box." She might have said more, but at the sound of footsteps on the stairs, she closed her mouth. "Sarah Jane." Rani resisted the urge to jump up and throw her arms around the woman. "We were wondering where you had got to."

The woman nodded absently. "Sorry about that. UNIT insisted on having one of their medical personnel check me over after-" she looked at all three of them in turn before continuing. "I was shot at. Don't worry," she added quickly before any of them could comment. "I was wearing a bulletproof vest. I've got a couple of bruised ribs, but that's all. And then I had to pick up a friend at Heathrow. Lauren, I stopped at the Indian place and picked up dinner. You two," she added, looking at Clyde and Rani, "should probably be getting home before your parents start worrying."

Lauren stood. "I should wash my hands before dinner." She was out the door and on her way down the stairs before any of them could comment.

Clyde and Rani looked at each other and started picking up their things. Once they were sure that Lauren was out of earshot, they gave Sarah Jane a quick précis of the events of the evening, including the Trickster's appearance and his odd reaction to Lauren.

Sarah Jane nodded in all the right places, but she didn't comment. "We'll talk tomorrow."

Once the two teenagers got their gear together, she followed them downstairs.

"Sarah, did you want a drink before dinner?" And there was Vislor Turlough leaning in the doorway that lead to the lounge.

"Maybe later. Clyde Langer, Rani Chandra, this is Vislor Turlough. He's an old friend of mine."

Rani didn't think he looked _that_ old. Younger than her dad, certainly, but then the Doctor looked even younger than that.

"We met this evening. Sort of." Turlough shook both their hands in turn.

"The Trickster. Vislor told me something had happened but not the details. I suppose it's not unexpected." Sarah gave him a private look that Rani would dearly have loved to know the meaning of. "Off with you two. I have no desire to have your parents suddenly deciding that I'm a bad influence."

"You mean they don't already? Sarah Jane Smith, you're slipping," Vislor Turlough teased.

Rani was very glad she wasn't on the receiving end of the glare that Sarah Jane gave him. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valour, she followed Clyde out the door.

"What do you make of him?" Clyde asked, once the door shut behind them.

"I don't know. Ask me tomorrow." Rani could see her mother watching out the window and she waved. "Bye."

"See you tomorrow." Clyde started off down the street, and Rani crossed over to the other side where her parents and her dinner were waiting.


	8. The Night of Demons Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Timing:
> 
>  _The Scientist_ AU Sarah  & Turlough  
>  _The Keeper_ Right after Sarah Jane Smith: Dreamland  
>  _The Centurion_ Chapter 1

# Story

Everyone was more subdued tonight. The endless barrage of bombs against the shield was getting to them. It was getting to her too, if she were honest with herself. Three nights, and now in a galaxy halfway across the universe the Battle of Demons Run was happening- assuming their prophecies were correct.

They had no way of knowing what was going on elsewhere in the universe now, and neither did the ships bombing them. At least the bombers would eventually run out of bombs, or supplies or both, even if they couldn't be ordered home.

And that was the problem. The assumption had been that Madame Kovarian would call off the siege after Demons Run, since the idea had been to keep the Orbus Postremo from giving aid to the Doctor. But now, all bets were off.

Unless they could fix the timelock.

The bouncy puppy Doctor thought that the damage had leaked back through time and that was what had caused the TARDISes to stall here, and he might well be right. Story knew from personal experience that temporal explosions tended to cause ripples in both the past and the future. She'd bowed to Turlough's wishes and considered the problem, but hadn't come up with any solution. But then neither had any of the others.

Her regulars were back in their seats and River's Doctor was in his usual position in the wings when she began her first story of the evening. Turlough wasn't here yet, which was just as well. He wouldn't like her first story at all. She didn't like it much herself, but it had to be told.

# The Scientist

> Once, a long time ago, before the Time War, before the Doctor had left Gallifrey, before the Herald had become the Herald, she was just a woman. In those days, there was no reason for her to choose journalism over rocket science, no Doctor to show her the wonders of the universe, just a driven woman determined to make it in a world that favoured men.
> 
> She was a brilliant scientist, but with no Doctor to break down her walls, they just grew stronger. Even her colleagues, while they admired her, would never claim they knew her well. And no one expected her to marry a man half her age. At least until they met him.
> 
> He was younger than she was, an illustrator of children's books, or so the story goes, and no one understood what had brought them together, but somehow they seemed to make it work, despite the occasional flaming row. There were times when their colleagues claimed they hated each other, but then who knows what goes on behind closed doors.
> 
> The one thing we do know is that they had a daughter who they both doted on. Perhaps the one thing they truly had in common.

Story paused here and took a sip of her water. It had been a long time ago, in a reality that had been written over a thousand times since, but what happened next still bothered her. She tried to control her voice as she told the next part, but she could hear it shaking.

> The girl grew up, as children do, but when she was eleven years old, she died in an accident. Children do sometimes. And most of the time, their parents grieve and move on. But the Herald and her husband had lost too much along the way; family and friends lost due to circumstances beyond their control.
> 
> This was the last straw.
> 
> No one knows which of them came up with the idea. The Herald had already done some work in temporal physics and had access to the equipment they would need. They would find a way to go back in time and fix everything that had gone wrong with their lives. They would make things right.
> 
> But as you know, changing history is dangerous, and especially the way the Herald and her husband set about it. Some say they got the equations wrong and ripped a hole in the fabric of history. Some say they got them right, but that the changes they made nearly destroyed the galaxy. Some say that Rassilon stepped in and created the myth of the Herald to prevent whatever damage they'd done from sticking and some say that he did it to control her because he feared what she might become.
> 
> He was right about the last bit. Whatever happened then, whatever they did or didn't do, the path she ended up on made her more dangerous than he could ever imagine because he gave her the chance to learn from her mistakes. And when the Time War came and he tried to turn her into a tool he could use to rewrite the history of Earth-that-was, she used every trick he'd taught her against him, reclaiming the legend of the Herald and protecting the Earth's timeline from the ravages of the War. And that is why we call her the Guardian of Time.

Like so many of the Order's stories, this one didn't have a proper ending. That was what happened with time travel. Either the story ended by rewriting itself, or the ending was yet to be written.

Tonight's attendant had come over to refill her water and give her the announcements and Story glanced up and froze. "You shouldn't be here."

"She won't recognise me. Not in this garb. And she can't hear me over the chatter." Everyone knew they wouldn't get reports from Demons Run until after the siege, but that didn't stop people from speculating. "I think I've got an idea of how to break the time lock. It was Turlough's idea, and the Doctor thinks it might work. But I'm going to need your help."

"Of course." Story listened as Sarah explained her plan. "Are you sure you want to do that? It doesn't seem fair."

"That's just it. I'm almost certain it's exactly what happened, judging by the gaps in my memory."

Story nodded. "You may be right. It would certainly add to the story." She herself didn't know how the siege had ended- no one had ever been willing to tell her, and she was still braced for the worst. "I've got two more stories to tell tonight, and I'm the last storyteller I scheduled. I told Loisa I'd let her know if we needed her, but I was hoping we'd find a way out of this mess."

"We have." Sarah squeezed her hand. "And we will. If not this way, then another. I think your audience is ready for you now."

Another nod, and as Sarah moved off to the side, Story began the next tale.

# The Keeper

> Despite her adventure at the space facility, the Herald never lost her fascination with space travel. And so, when in the beginning of the 21st century, the Keeper of the White Chapter offered her a place on an experimental spaceship, she jumped at the chance. This was at the tail end of the schism, when the Crimson Chapter of the Orbus Postremo had been all but destroyed and the White Chapter was on its way to fulfilling one of the earliest predictions in the _Exemplar Cras_.
> 
> While they were preparing for the trip, the old Keeper died and his son succeeded to the post. His son had been both bodyguard and assistant to the Herald, protecting her as she grew into her power, though he didn't realise even then how much she knew or had guessed about her so-called destiny. The third and last person in the ship was a trained pilot.
> 
> The launch went according to plan, and before the Herald knew it, she was once again in the position to see Earth from space. In those days many humans had seen pictures, but very few had had the opportunity to see it for themselves.
> 
> But while they were enjoying the view, their pilot was putting his own plan into effect. One of the last members of the Crimson Chapter, he'd been in deep cover for a long time and even if the rest of his order were dead and gone, he was determined to succeed in their aim. He was going to kill the Herald.
> 
> There was a fight. Guns were drawn and used, not a good thing when one is in a thin-walled spaceship on the way out of Earth's atmosphere. The pilot was killed in the scuffle, the Keeper was badly injured, the control panel was damaged and the ship was running out of air.
> 
> Once the Herald had made short work of the Mandragora Helix, she set to work. It was only through sheer willpower that she was able to get to the spare oxygen and hook a new canister on to her spacesuit, but once she had that, she set to work patching the holes in both the ship and the Keeper before activating the emergency air supply. She had just started working on the damaged control panel, trying not to worry about the lack of fuel, when the Keeper stirred.
> 
> "Where are you? I can't see you." The Keeper tried to get up, winced and collapsed back on to the cold metal floor. The second attempt was more successful and he was able to use the chairs for support as he worked his way to the cockpit. He found the Herald there, rewiring something in the dashboard. "What are you doing?"
> 
> "Rerouteing power so that we don't freeze to death." Her hands moved confidently as she tightened screws and attached wires.
> 
> The effort to get back to the cockpit had left the Keeper dizzy so he grabbed hold of the copilot's chair, manoeuvred himself into the seat and forced his shaking fingers to fasten the straps. Once he'd steadied himself a bit, he started fiddling with the radio.
> 
> The Herald shook her head. The radio was dead, she told him, and the monitors were iffy. They were on the verge of apogee and flying blind.
> 
> The Keeper protested that she couldn't possibly know what she was doing, though he didn't know why he was arguing with her. It wasn't as though it would make them any deader when they crashed. Finally he just lay back in his seat and watched her.
> 
> She took the controls like a pro, flipping a few switches and then turning the wheel hard to the right.
> 
> He had no idea what she was doing, but it seemed to be working. They made a tight turn around the moon and suddenly the Earth filled the view screen, coming towards them at a alarming rate.
> 
> The Herald pulled back on the control and they levelled out. They were still falling, but at a less drastic angle. She drifted off into talk about unstable orbits and gravity, but all the Keeper understood was that she was trying to slow them down. Suddenly she insisted he take the controls whilst she tried to fix the radio, claiming she had an idea.
> 
> The Keeper couldn't believe this. She seemed to be doing well enough, but he wouldn't and the radio was less important than their lives.
> 
> "We're low enough now that gravity will do most of the work. We just need to circle a few times in orbit to slow ourselves down. And I need the radio working so we don't bump into anything. All you have to do is hold the control steady. I'll do the rest."
> 
> He nodded and swallowed his fear as the Herald loosed her straps, and slid down expertly under the console despite the low gravity. It was a nerve-wracking five minutes, but then she bounced up refastened her straps and flipped a switch.
> 
> The voice of the Herald's other assistant emerged from the speaker. "-you read me? Dauntless, the satellites have spotted you. Please answer if you can."
> 
> Unwilling to believe it was true, the Keeper replied. Communication established, he tried to convey the Herald's explanations of what she'd done and what the dials said, while she kept the craft steady. He didn't understand half of what he was saying but the staff at Mission Control seemed to, or at least the energetic male voice that kept interrupting the Herald's other assistant did.
> 
> The Keeper rapidly filled them in on what he remembered and tried to reassure everyone on the ground that the Herald had repaired the cockpit. A shower of sparks from the panel belied that comment, but he ignored it and kept talking. It kept his mind off the pain.
> 
> The man - the Doctor - and the Herald fell into a technical discussion of ways to slow down the craft. Finally, she insisted the Keeper take the controls again. She stripped off her gloves expertly, detached her tools from the magnetic strip on her suit and disappeared under the console again.
> 
> Thankfully, the Herald and the people down at Mission Control kept up a constant chatter, because the Keeper was feeling dizzy again and answering their questions and banter kept him focused.
> 
> Shortly thereafter, the Herald re-emerged, collected the fire extinguisher from its place behind her and sprayed a bit of the console with it. She replaced the extinguisher in its netting before taking her seat and the controls, and instructed the team on the ground to calculate where she needed to break orbit, so that she would land close to the launch site.
> 
> Almost immediately, the Doctor reeled off a series of coordinates and again the Keeper was startled at how expertly the Herald handled the controls. The Doctor and the Herald fell into technical chatter again, and he closed his eyes.
> 
> He must have dozed off because the next thing he knew, the Herald was calling out "Brace yourself" and he automatically fell into the position they'd learnt during their orientation session. She seemed to be aiming for what looked like a runway. A straight stretch of desert and then they hit the ground hard and he lost consciousness again.
> 
> He woke in a hospital bed, the Herald sitting at his side. "I guess we made it."
> 
> "We did. The Dauntless didn't." She looked at him thoughtfully.
> 
> The Keeper started to sit up but winced in pain. Instead he smiled at her. She'd saved the world, not for the first time and not for the last. Nothing needed to be said.

This time, after she'd ended the story, Story stood and stretched. The sound of the bombs exploding on the shields had started to slow; their enemy must be running out of bombs. She wondered idly what they might do if contact wasn't established with their commanders soon, but with any luck they wouldn't have to deal with that.

There was the usual movement in the audience as people wandered off to the toilets or to get a snack or to go on shift. The siege had been a strain but it was almost over, assuming Turlough's plan worked.

After a few minutes, she sat down again, welcomed everyone back and read the announcements. Thankfully, these mostly concerned lost property and advisements about the damaged areas of the palace. Then, placing her hands in her lap, she took a deep breath. "One last story for tonight, and it's a new one. I hope you'll like it."

 _The Centurion_

> They say that the Lone Centurion came to the keep of the Orbus Postremo in the midst of the darkest night before the battle of Demons Run seeking their help. There is, of course poetic license involved. There always is where the Order of the Orbus Postremo are involved.
> 
> So he came to the keep in the darkest night (it's always dark in space) and they offered him food and a bed for the night (as they would any traveller or seeker of wisdom) and he told them he sought an audience with the most senior member of the Order (he did _not_ say "Take me to your leader", that was a later addition to the tale).

She had to pause there to wait for the laughter to die down. It wasn't true, but it would be remembered.

> She was taller than he was, her face and hair hidden by the red hood of her cloak (you were expecting someone else? This is one of our deepest legends, after all).

Another laugh. She always got the biggest laughs when she talked about herself in the third person.

> He greeted her politely as one does when one is seeking knowledge from a wise woman on a quest and said, "The wandering scholars of your order are bound to record history as it happens. Have you seen any sign of my wife who was taken by one unknown to me?"
> 
> "What people think and what we are are two different things. We do not collect history but tales and legends. I have no facts to give you. No coordinates of her last known location. All I can do is tell you a story." And so she did.
> 
> She told him the story of the Princess and the Centurion and how she had been captured by an evil witch and trapped in her castle in the clouds. And she told him about the old woman who had witnessed his wife's capture, though she did not name names. But we know her name.
> 
> That was not the beginning of the story. Who knows when the story began? Was it when the Herald met the Lone Centurion in her youth? Or perhaps when she read the patterns of history and realised why the Princess had been taken. Or maybe that was the beginning of the story. The Herald's future affects her past more than any normal person's would.
> 
> But whenever the story started, this is not the end. The witch in the clouds fears the stories that we tell, though we don't- we can't foretell her downfall yet. There are always those that fear stories, which is why we tell them.
> 
> So the Lone Centurion heard a story that was both familiar and strange to him and I called upon one of the best pilots in the Time Agency to get him first to Trion and then to Demons Run so that he would be there when his wife needed him. He left and we stayed and held the line. We told the stories she fears so much for three days and three nights, and if you know the old tales you know that three is a magic number. We will remember and we will keep telling our stories, whether she approves or not. And with any luck our stories will lead the princess and her daughter safely home.

There was cheering and clapping. The story still needed some work but it would stand for now. Story got lightly to her feet and bowed slightly. "There will be an intermission now. We should have the timelock off within the hour and news of the Battle of Demons Run shortly thereafter." The damage to the timelock had been kept within a small circle of people to prevent panic. Isolation from the rest of the universe had been intended as a stopgap measure and there was still hope that they could fix this.

She watched as they filed out, some stopping to talk to her or thank her. The youngest Sarah was hanging back despite Harry's clear desire to leave so Story nodded at her. She didn't know how much the other woman had absorbed, but Sarah's older self had been right. She couldn't be allowed to leave with that knowledge.

The theatre had emptied until there were only four people left. Sarah, Harry, the hooded acolyte in the corner and Story.

Sarah approached Story hesitantly. "I wasn't supposed to hear those stories, was I?"

"No. And yes. But you can't leave here with the memories intact. You know that." Harry looked bewildered, but Story ignored him and turned to the acolyte. "You were right, it seems." She didn't have to say more.

The acolyte walked over to stand in front of Sarah.

"What's going on?" Harry asked.

"What has to happen." Story caught Harry's arm and led him back against the side wall. "Watch but do not interfere."

As they watched the acolyte reached out and took the younger Sarah's hands. There was a brilliant flare and the younger Sarah collapsed.

"What did you do to her?" Harry demanded. "Who are you?"

Hands reached up and pushed back the hood that concealed her face. "Me. Hello, Harry." Sarah withdrew from her unconscious younger self. "Harry, you'll have to carry her back to the TARDIS. She's not going to remember much of what happened here. The Doctor will explain."

Harry looked from one Sarah to the other before picking up the younger one, glaring at the older one and walking out of the room without a word.

"I've confused him, I think. We haven't been travelling together long."

Story smiled at this. "I believe you did. Are you okay?"

"A little wobbly. And I remember more than I did." Sarah started to say something else but was distracted by a movement of the curtains.

"You might as well come out, Doctor. I know you're there."

It wasn't the Doctor who emerged but the oldest Sarah. "Hello, me."

The Sarah standing by Story froze. "Do we have to do that _again_?"

"No." The older Sarah grimaced. "Nothing near that dire."

Her younger self looked at her, started to say something, stopped and then said, "He was so young. Was that really necessary?"

She had to be talking about Turlough and Story suddenly found herself wondering if her conception had been just another chess move of her mother's. Then she reminded herself that nothing was quite that simple, especially where her parents were concerned. Their whole relationship seemed to be based on negotiating and renegotiating a tricky landscape of time, duty and what they wanted, in that order.

"It was. For so many reasons. Vislor is going to mess your head up and tear you apart. He'll never be the Doctor, but once you get past that and time breaks down some of your walls, he might just be the best thing that ever happened to you. Happens to you." The older woman smiled at her younger self. "You know what you need to do next and why. I know it's hard, but it's necessary. It was all necessary."

Sarah looked at her older self and then at Story. After a moment, she impulsively hugged the latter. "It was good meeting you. I hope I'll get to see you again." She stopped there, looked at her older self and winced. "Now there's a silly thing to say. Until I see you again, take care of yourself, please."

"I always do." Story watched the woman walk out of the room. "Now what?"

"Now I leave and you have a chat with the man behind the curtain," Sarah said lightly.

Story hadn't even known that Sarah knew he was there, but in retrospect, she wasn't terribly surprised.

This Sarah also hugged Story before she left.

Story watched her go and then turned to look at the stage, where River's Doctor was now standing. "I suppose you have some questions."

"Some questions. Some observations. Can we go somewhere more private?"

"My room?" She didn't want him there. She didn't want to have this conversation at all, but she'd known it was inevitable.


	9. Interlude 4

Lauren took her time washing her hands and even splashed water on her face. The events of that evening were a bit of a blur, but one thing stood out- what the Trickster had said to her. "I'm real. I know I'm real." She pinched herself and winced at the pain. "But a real girl would remember _something_. Not this muddle." Had her mother been dark- or red-haired? Where had she come from? What had her life been like before she woke up in the hospital? "I don't belong here. No one knows me here." Why did that bother her so much?

Finally, she went down, taking the stairs as slowly as she dared. She didn't want to face Clyde or Rani right now. Even facing Sarah Jane over the dinner table would be difficult. It wasn't as though the woman was bestirring herself to try to figure out who Lauren really was. Maybe Sarah Jane already knew Lauren wasn't real and was trying to protect her from the truth. She was that sort of person.

Thoughts in a muddle, it took a while for the voices coming from the lounge to filter through. Sarah Jane wasn't alone. The other voice sounded familiar, but Lauren couldn't place it.

"Same old, same old. Arden's still trying everything he can to get me off the council," the man was saying. "But short of installing Malkon in my place, he doesn't have many options. There are some advantages to a hereditary aristocracy," he added sarcastically.

"You'd think he'd know better by now." Sarah laughed. "Lauren?"

"Yes, Sarah Jane?" Lauren braved the entryway. The man looked awfully familiar, but she couldn't place him.

"Ready for dinner?" Sarah Jane asked after she'd made introductions. "I got you chicken tikka."

Lauren managed a smile and somehow she survived that dinner, listening to Sarah Jane and Turlough reminisce about their adventures with the Doctor. Afterwards, she made a hasty retreat with a muttered comment about finishing her homework.

She collected her books from the attic and went down to her own room, but instead of opening them, she dumped them on the desk and sat down on the bed. The feeling of not belonging here returned, stronger than before. Perhaps it was her room- aside from her books, it still looked like the spare room. "I could disappear tomorrow and no one would notice." Would they even care? She wished she knew.

Mechanically, she stripped and put on her night gown, climbing into bed and pulling the covers over her head. All the better to block out a world that didn't seem to have a place for her.

* * *

"You see what I mean?" Sarah Jane had kicked her shoes off and curled up on the sofa in the lounge. "I wish I could believe that she's just lying to protect the timeline, but she's so guarded."

Vislor poured them each a drink before joining her there. "Yeah. Any idea what's going on in her head?" He passed her her drink, and setting his own on the table started massaging her shoulders. "You're very tense."

"You have good hands. Do you think she will confide in me? I'm almost certain that the amnesia is real, but that's all I know. That, and that she's from fifteen years in the future and when she showed up she was showing signs of heavy sedation. I think it's safe to say that someone was messing with her mind." Sarah bent her head and leaned forward. "Don't stop. That feels so good."

"I wasn't planning to." Vislor paused to take a sip of his drink and then returned to the massage. He could tell she was exhausted and she wouldn't be getting a rest any time soon. "I would have spared you this if I could have."

"I would have spared _you_ this. Don't forget we're in this mess together. And we knew it was coming." Sarah laughed brittlely. "I went to look in the _Exemplar Cras_ and the book fell open to the Demons Run prophecy. I've never been a big fan of fate, but there are some choices that can't be unwritten, even when history is."

"And some secrets that shouldn't be told." Vislor stopped rubbing her back and slipped his arms over her shoulders, pulling her towards him. He felt her tense and then relax against him. "So what changed?"

"Nothing. Everything. What he did to end the war isn't something you can walk away from unbroken. I remember, sitting in an empty house in the country, thinking that if it worked, it was time to let her go. I'd seen how damaged the timeline was, and thought that if I never had a daughter, perhaps it would heal. And maybe I'd get to live a normal life." Sarah kicked off her shoes and swung her feet up onto the sofa.

"But the Time Lords are gone now, and time needs protectors. Like you. Like me. Not everyone who travelled with the Doctor chose to make this their life's work." He realised his glass was empty and put it down. "And Trion needs me as much as Earth needs you right now. We're still too close to civil war and another war like the last would destroy us."

"I'm tired. I'm not as young as I used to be. And I'm not a Time Lord to go on for centuries, untouched by the passage of time."

"You're not as old as you think you are." There were lines on her face that hadn't been there the last time he'd seen her. So what? "I'm tired, you're tired and we don't get to see each other that often. Come up to bed with me and we can worry about saving the world tomorrow."

Sarah laughed and stood, turning to grab his hand and pull him up. "Bed sounds like a good idea."

* * *

Lauren wasn't sure what woke her. Only that she was wide awake, her mind racing a mile a minute over fragments of memory that vanished when she tried to examine them. Pushing the covers back, she got out of bed and put her dressing gown and slippers on. Sarah Jane might not be much help, but she was all Lauren had.

Padding out into the hallway, she reached up to knock on Sarah Jane's door, only to pause in mid-air at sounds of muffled speech and laughter coming from the room. Her arm dropped to her side. Apparently Turlough was _that_ sort of friend. A momentary smile crossed her face as she imagined what Clyde, who had described Sarah Jane's almost-marriage to Peter Dalton with something akin to horror would think of this, but as quickly as the smile appeared, it fled.

She found herself wondering once again if anyone would notice if she disappeared as abruptly as she'd come. Following an impulse she didn't quite understand, she went back to her room and got dressed. She moved quickly and quietly down the stairs and out the door. Standing, blinking in the bright moonlight, she buttoned her coat and pulled up her hood and started walking, retracing the path that she and Clyde had taken when they first arrived, not even sure how she remembered it.

There wasn't anything that marked this place as different from any other. No graffiti stating that "Lauren was here". Lauren turned around slowly examining the site from all directions. A shiver went down her spine and when she turned there was someone- something looking at her.

It was pale white and its face reminded her of the Trickster. She swallowed a cry of alarm and turned away. A panicky feeling settled itself in her stomach and she wondered what she could possibly have been so scared of. Slowly she turned back and this time she did scream. No one heard and no one saw as she slumped into unconsciousness. Her last thought was the same one that had driven her out into the night - would anyone even notice she was gone?

* * *

She woke to find herself in an all white room. It might have been a hospital, but it wasn't the room she'd been in the last time she'd woken up in a panic.

"Are we awake?"

Lauren blinked at the voice. There was a woman leaning over her with a metal eye-patch over one eye. "No, we aren't," she replied insolently. She'd almost got away and she would have if she hadn't been idiot enough to go out into the night alone, without telling anyone where she was going. Lauren found she had neither the desire nor the intention of making this easy for her captor.

The woman laughed joylessly. "Tell me your name."

She considered for a moment. "James James Morrison Morrison Weatherby George DuPree." Oh, she could do this all day long. The thought surfaced that she didn't actually know the answer to the question, but she pushed it back down.

"Do I need to call in the Silence?"

Somehow Lauren knew that that was what the creature who had captured her was called, even if she couldn't remember what it looked like or anything else about it. "No."

"I'll ask again. What is your name?"

"Melody Pond." Lauren didn't know where that name came from and she was almost certain that it wasn't true but it seemed to satisfy the woman. Suddenly it became clear that this wasn't an interrogation but a test.

The woman smiled in a way that might have caused Lauren to flinch if she hadn't been strapped to the bed. "What is your mother's name?"

"Amy- Amelia." The red-haired woman. Lauren went very still, as she turned this over in her mind. This had to be what the people in that other hospital were trying to do- to make her think she was this Melody Pond, whoever she was and the woman with the eye-patch was checking to make sure the procedure had gone as planned. But it hadn't. Lauren had escaped first and no one had told this woman that. If she could pass the woman's tests, she might have more of an advantage than she'd realised.

The grilling continued. "Your father?"

"The Last Centurion."

For some reason this surprised the woman, though she covered it well and it did seem to please her.

Just for good measure, Lauren added, "Rory." She wasn't sure where these names were coming from. Buried in her subconscious, perhaps. The beginnings of the conditioning that had never been finished.

The woman nodded, pleased and closed the window, leaving her alone.

If it had been Lauren, she would have stripped her captive and given her clothes that she knew had neither listening devices or tracers on them. But her captor hadn't thought of that, and she was still dressed in her pyjamas and red coat. There wasn't much in the pockets of the coat, and she wished she'd thought of that before she'd left, but how could she have known.

There was nothing to do in the small white cell but wait, and she didn't have to wait long.

"I've come for my daughter," a man roared outside her cell, and Lauren took a deep breath and did what was expected of her, banging on the door and yelling.

"Stand back, I'm going to blow the lock," a woman called, and Lauren did so. The ginger woman grabbed her hand and shouted, "Run," so Lauren did.

They ran right into a big room where Madame Kovarian stood. Guards surrounded Rory and she and Amy were forced at gunpoint to join them, but Lauren knew it was just a ruse. Her captor wanted them to escape with the wrong child. No doubt it would be broadcast to the four corners of the galaxy. She understood then, what she had to do.

"Mum. Dad." She threw herself into their arms, willing them to "See it. See what's wrong with this picture." But she knew they wouldn't. They wanted to believe so badly.

There had to be a tracer on her, no matter what Sarah Jane had said. She'd be in place to eavesdrop on every word, every plan. And if she escaped the woman would just take another girl and try again.

The world seemed to slow as she pulled away from Melody's parents. "You both need to run now. Do you think she would let Melody- the real Melody know who you were? It's a trap! I'm a trap!" She swung around to face Madame Kovarian. "What's wrong? Didn't anyone tell you I escaped _before_ the procedure was finished?" She danced a few steps closer, giddily. "I may not know who I am but I'm not Melody Pond and I won't be your spy." There was something there, just at the edge of her consciousness. Just out of reach.

"Child, stop this nonsense at once," Madame Kovarian commanded her.

"What nonsense?" She danced a little closer so that she was standing eye to eye with her captor. "Everyone makes mistakes. Even Rassilon. Even you."

"Guards, seize her."

"My, what big guards you have. Are you so scared of one child that you need grown men with guns to protect you? And as long as we're on the subject, my, what big eyes you have. Well, eye. And what sharp teeth you have. Are you going to eat me if I don't behave? 'Cause let me tell you right now, I aim to misbehave." She stood perfectly still as the guards came closer. "I don't know who I am, so I could be anyone. Little Red Riding Hood facing the Bad Wolf. Malcolm Reynolds. Your worst nightmare. Or I could just be a child that you broke in your quest for revenge. Who will miss me when I'm gone? Do you even know?" Out of the corner of her eye she saw a guard take aim. She dropped automatically, flinging up her arm as if to protect herself, so that the blast hit the wrist that had itched when she'd first escaped. Biting down a scream, she stood again, forcing herself to continue. Containing the pain in her mind and using it. "There goes your tracking device. If I ran now, could you find me?" She yelled, trying to sound more certain than she was.

"You are nothing. Less than nothing. Why would I bother?" The look on Madame Kovarian's face chilled her. That wasn't the response she wanted.

"Because I know things now. Many valuable things. Things that I overlooked before." She looked regretfully at her now singed red coat. "Do not put your faith in a cloak and a hood. They will not protect you the way that they should." She paused. "Do I have to sing the whole damned song? Anyway, you can't let me go now. _They_ know what I look like. What happens when they find me? When _he_ finds me?" She didn't know who the he in question was, but she had her suspicions.

"You know, you're right." Madame Kovarian unholstered a blaster and shot her.

For a second, Lauren just stood there motionless. And then she screamed, "Melly, I hope you're watching," as she toppled to the floor.

* * *

The world slowed to a stop as the girl collapsed.

"Check to make sure that she's dead," Madame Kovarian ordered unemotionally.

"No vital signs." The guard did something and the information appeared on the screen. All vital signs zero.

Rory stared at that for a second. The whole thing had happened so fast, he hadn't had time to react, but now he knew what he had to do. "She didn't do anything to you. She was just a child." He yelled as he dropped down to the floor beside the body. "She was right. You broke her and then you killed her." He caught her up in his arms and ran. All it had taken was a touch to confirm his suspicions. He took a moment to push the remains of the bracelet off of her arm. "Amy, let's get out of here. Maybe we can find her family and give her a proper burial at least."

He heard Madame Kovarian say, "let them go," as they left the hall. He'd counted on that. Her plan in ruins, she had no reason to keep them.

The TARDIS was right where the Doctor had said it would be. Right where they'd planned. He didn't stop in the console room but headed straight for the infirmary.

The Doctor stopped him, staring down at the body in Rory's arms. "What happened out there?"

"It wasn't Melody. She took a child who had nothing to do with anything and tried to convince her she was Melody. It broke her. She went somewhat mad out there and goaded Madame Kovarian until she killed her," Amy replied.

"No." The Doctor's face was as still as death.

Amy laid a hand on the Doctor's arm. "She's not important."

He shook her off and turned on her. "You're not the only couple who ever had a child, you know." The Doctor reached over and pushed the hood, which had fallen concealing her face, up. "She didn't take just any child. Her father was a companion of mine long before I knew you and now I have to go tell him just how his daughter died." He started to take her from Rory's arms, but the other man moved away.

"Let's take her up to the infirmary. There may be hope," Rory didn't wait for an answer but pushed past the Doctor and headed up the stairs.

He heard Amy say to the Doctor, "I didn't mean that, you know, about her not being important. It just all happened so fast and I thought she was Melody but she wasn't." There was more, but Rory understood. It was the sort of thing one said in the heat of the moment and regretted afterwards. Once the girl was settled on the bed, Rory started working the monitors, trying to get a good reading.

"Rory, she's dead. There's nothing you can do," Amy said from the doorway.

"All the readings were zero. _All of them._ I'm a nurse, Amy, I've seen people die and that doesn't happen. Not the way it did on the screen. You've watched police shows. Remember how they tell time of death?"

"Contents of the stomach. Insect infestation. _Temperature!_ " Suddenly she crossed the room and was standing beside him.

"Exactly. There's no way her temperature would have dropped to zero, unless she had been frozen to death." He gave up on the sensors, which were all reading zero. "Doctor, is it possible she's got another biodamper on? One that could be malfunctioning."

"Doctor?" Amy asked.

"What? Yes. That's possible. Let me see her." The Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and scanned the girl's body. "Madame Kovarian's tracker is fried. And there is another one. Left shoulder." He reached for a surgical instrument and made a single cut, withdrawing a white object about the size of a smartie. "Here it is. No metal, so it wouldn't set off an alarm, powered, I suspect, by either body heat or kinaesthetics. Remarkable. And you're right. It did reset itself. Let's see what happens when we turn it off." He did something with his screwdriver. "Rory?"

"Temperature, normal. Pulse, weak but steady. She's definitely breathing. She's not human- well, according to this she's half human. Who could survive a direct hit like that?"

The Doctor was still turning the biodamper over and over between his fingers. "Me, River. Her too, apparently. I need you to wake up." This was said to the girl.

"Hmm." The girl's eyes flew open. She started to sit up and winced. "Ow."

"You were hit with a blaster. Do you remember that?"

"You were at the hospital," then, "yes, I remember. They won't like that. Her troops, I mean. A Time Lord is one thing, but a defenceless child- I wasn't even armed."

"She could have killed you," Amy said. "Why would you do something like that?"

"I don't matter. Melody's the one she wants. I'm just some random kid she picked up off the street." She sounded like she believed that.

"As I was just telling Amy and Rory, there was nothing random about you. Do you remember anything before the hospital?" The Doctor scanned her with the sonic screwdriver but didn't share what he saw.

"Fragments. Probably stuff they tried to put into my brain." Silence. "I'm sorry. If you're trying to figure out where I belong, I'm not going to be much help. I'm not sure I even exist in this timeline."

Rory thought that was a strange thing to say.

"I've met you in this timeline. You were much younger, though." The Doctor looked concerned.

Before he could go into more detail, Amy asked, "Was Melody there? Watching?"

"I don't- I don't think so." The girl's voice faltered. "Sometimes it feels like she's in my mind, but I think that's just their conditioning. I'm sorry."

The Doctor ignored the exchange and returned to his earlier thought. "I wonder. If someone were rummaging in your mind, messing with your memories, could you- what do you do when you're afraid someone will find something? I think you shoved your memories into a tiny box and locked it so they couldn't find out what you knew." He fidgeted with the biodamper. "The real question is what you used as the key."

"A key- like a song? Or a rhyme?" Rory remembered them doing things like that in Amy's books. "Or a fairy tale." Something clicked in his head. "While I was looking for Amy, I was sitting waiting for a ship and heard a woman telling a group of children a fairy tale and I wondered if I'd ever get the chance to do that. But I just remembered. In the tale she told the grandmother only had one eye."

The Doctor went very still. "There's a religious order at the height of their power in the 52nd century that considers it their duty to tell stories, but they alter them to their own purposes. One-eyed witches, indeed."

"The Orbus Postremo. I went there, to see if they had any news about Amy." Rory paused. "And was told another story about a one-eyed witch. But that isn't the right tale. The storyteller told me nothing I didn't already know because she knew or suspected we were being watched. The important story was the one which brought me there. A variant on Little Red Riding Hood in which the girl goes to her grandmother to visit her sister, but the grandmother turns out to be in league with the wolf and the sister is being held captive. And it's all entwined with this song. I looked it up on the internet when we got home and was surprised to find the lyrics." He took a deep breath. "I'm not the best singer but,"

>   
> _They'll speak of girls in cloaks like flame  
>  That flickered through the wood;  
> They'll speak in riddles, hide her name,  
> As if they ever could_
> 
>  _Know the secret reasons why  
>  She ventured from the path;  
> Ask her now, and she'll reply  
> With nothing but a laugh --_   
> 

The girl blinked at him and he could see the confusion in her eyes clearing. "I did it right, then."

"Yes. You- I remember who I am now." She was glaring at the Doctor for some reason. "This never would have happened-"

"-if not for me." The Doctor frowned. "You never did like me much. But you and I need to have a serious talk."

"I don't want to talk to you. I want to go home." The girl started to get out of bed, only to fall back, clearly in pain. "I want my father."

"That blast might not have killed you, but you've got some nasty burns," the Doctor commented. "I'll take you home to Trion but first I need to make sure you know who you are."

"Loire Turlough," she snapped. "And you can't. She thinks Loire Turlough is dead. I don't have anywhere else to go."

"Loire?" Rory didn't know how long River had been standing in the doorway, but she brushed past the others to sit on the bed. "You're so young. Does this mean I get to be big sister for once?"

The girl said firmly, "No." And glared at River. Loire seemed angry with the entire universe right now, and Rory didn't blame her.

"But you remember me?" River took Loire's hand and gripped it tightly.

"I hit you. Stole your teleporter at the hospital."

"It was a vortex manipulator, but so you did. I felt that for a week. That wasn't what I meant and you know it."

"Sorry." Loire didn't sound like she meant it.

"Don't apologise. I'll do worse to you a time or two. However, it's a good thing you didn't die. You still have to figure out how to break me out of Stormcage."

Loire gave River a bewildered look, but Amy laughed. "Did she?"

Rory had given up trying to figure out what was going on and concentrated on using a futuristic gadget he didn't quite understand to mend Loire's burns.

River looked up at him and smiled. "Yes, she did. You wouldn't suspect it, but she's got a wild streak."

"Stop talking around me like I'm not here. Ow." But she smiled at Rory, so he figured they were okay. "What's Stormcage?"

"A prison. Never mind. It hasn't happened to you yet. I want to know why you were being such an idiot." River crossed her arms and glared at Loire. "Goading her into using you as target practise? What were you thinking?"

"You're the important one. Doesn't matter what happens to me. I want to go home," she repeated. "Which I can't."

"And I want my vortex manipulator back. We've been tracking you, not it. What coordinates did you use?"

Loire rattled off a string of numbers without hesitation, then blinked. "I don't know where that came from."

The Doctor slipped out of the room with Amy in tow and it was only a moment or two before the TARDIS took flight.

River nodded. "Your parents, probably. It's the sort of thing they'd teach you. And those coordinates are for before you were born. Of course, the people who kidnapped you wouldn't look for you there. And your dad knew there'd be someone to keep you safe."

The girl stared at River. "Before I was born?" she asked slowly as though she didn't quite believe it. Then added, "that explains so much."

"You travelled fifteen years into the past, going by those coordinates."

"And I was safe until I got confused and scared and left the house in the middle of the night. And that's when they found me."

"If you didn't remember who you were, I can understand why you were confused. All you had were the memories they were giving you." River said, squeezing her hand.

The TARDIS landed with a jolt and both River and Rory automatically reached over to make sure Loire stayed on the bed. Rory finally figured out how to use the gadget properly and started working on her burns in earnest. He was vaguely aware of the Doctor and Amy returning to the infirmary with two other people in tow, one of whom he recognised.

"Are you okay?" the ginger man sat on the side of the bed and put his arm around the girl.

"You aren't supposed to know who I am yet." Loire scolded.

River seemed to think this was funny and after thinking about it for a moment, Rory did too.

"We need to talk about your penchant for wandering off," Sarah said, pausing long enough to give River her vortex manipulator back, then sat down on the other side of the bed.

'We _need_ to talk about this little game you've been playing, Sarah. Turlough." The Doctor threw Sarah the biodamper and she caught it. "Trion might have its issues, but no one there would care if Turlough had a half-human daughter, and if they did, he would probably think they weren't worth bothering with. Not to mention the other tricks you built into it. Though, given the frequent attacks to your timeline, I can understand why you'd want to make it very difficult to erase hers. Also, the data on this was wiped. I don't suppose you have a backup? I didn't want her leaving the TARDIS without it."

"Thank you for that." Sarah examined it for a moment, then used her sonic lipstick on it. "I made one when she showed up." She held out her hand and after a moment, he passed her his screwdriver. "And now you have a copy if this happens again." She traded it for a device that enabled her to inject it back into Loire's shoulder.

"She knocked out River despite being drugged," Rory couldn't resist adding. "And survived being shot point blank with a blaster." It wasn't often he got something like this before the Doctor explained it.

Amy stared at him and then burst out laughing so hard she hyperventilated.

Rory wondered what he'd said that was so funny. Had he completely misunderstood? He covered his confusion with concern for his wife, "Are you okay?"

"She had a second Time Lord in her hands and she let her slip through her fingers," Amy replied through spasms of laughter. "She just made a major mistake. Loire said she would and she did."

She calmed down a bit and Rory looked up at the River and Loire just in time to see River whisper something to the girl. "Does Loire call you Melly?"

"Only when she's being annoying."

"Oi! I'm not the one who's annoying."

The Doctor looked from one to the other. "And there's one more thing. How did you know that Melody wouldn't know her parents, Loire? If Madame Kovarian wanted you to go with Amy and Rory, she wouldn't have included that."

"I just know." Loire frowned, thinking.

"You said earlier you feel her sometimes in your head," Amy blurted out. "Maybe there is a connection."

"I think- that's why I got so confused when I couldn't remember. Her memories were spilling over into the vacuum." Loire shifted to lean against her father and he stroked her hair.

Beside him, Rory could feel Amy going still. "Which just convinced them that it worked," she said softly. "You called out to her just before you collapsed."

"Yeah. I don't know why I did that."

"Instinct, perhaps. Open the doors wide and let her see what Madame Kovarian was capable of. Can you feel her now?"

"Sort of. Not as well as before. She's scared. So scared. And her hands are all torn up. I think she got out of that suit the only way she could."

"She ripped her way out." The Doctor glanced at River. "We know that. We'll find her, Loire."

Rory put the gadget he'd been using on Loire's burns away. "There's one more thing the storyteller let slip. There was a witness to Amy's kidnapping." He saw Loire stiffen, but it was her mother he addressed. "I know it has to be you because I remember running into you at the village fête just before we left for America. What I don't know is how that person remembered enough to tell a story about it."

Instead of answering Rory, Sarah looked at the Doctor. "Have we done Mount Snowdon yet?"

The Doctor blinked at her. "No, the last time I saw you was NASA. 1969. And that's the only time I've met you so far in this regeneration."

Sarah drew a small recording device out of her pocket. "I started the recorder when I saw the Silence. Reporter's instincts. It was about a fortnight ago." She turned on the recorder to let them hear. There was a song playing in the background very softly, that didn't seem to go with the noise of the fête. "I held one of my earphones against it," she explained, "so that if the recording was altered before I listened to it, I'd notice a glitch in the music."

"Clever," Amy said and then fell silent.

> "Let go of me. You can't- I won't-" That was Amy's voice. It was painful to listen, but Rory forced himself. But she fell silent and only the song came through.
> 
>  _She took his hand on a gimcrack dare and the promise of tomorrow. And bartered what she had against what little she could borrow._
> 
> "Can I help you?" Sarah's voice. All too cool. "I think you should let go of the girl. She doesn't want to go with you."
> 
> Silence and the song came through.
> 
>  _"In mercy's shadow nothing grows, she's still running counting crows."_
> 
> Then Sarah's voice spoke, "What was I doing? Oh, yes. Is something wrong? Do you need help?" Again she suddenly fell silent.
> 
>  _-and she's running like a river. She's the broken dream of the sleepless roads and bound to be a rover-_
> 
> Rory could imagine the scene. The Silence with Amy in tow and Sarah turning to them and then away. Forgetting and then remembering and then forgetting again in a never ending loop.
> 
> "Where was I? Oh. Let her go this instant." There were sounds of a scuffle and a thud as something fell. And suddenly Sarah started speaking again. "You should really get a facelift you know. One should- One should- One for sorrow, I've had mine. Two for joy, I've had that too. Three for a girl, there's a girl. No, how does that go? Three's for a girl, four for a boy. I've met that boy before. Five for silver, like you kill a werewolf with. Six for gold, never needed that. And seven, that's a secret never to be told." She sounded like the man at the orphanage, whose mind had been broken by the Silence. But there was a method to her madness. One last time she fell silent and the song could be heard in the background.
> 
>  _She's had her sorrow, had her joy and for secrets she has sold them. She's had her truth and had her lies and it's willingly she's told them._

"I remember. You stopped at the first aid tent and said you must have tripped but didn't remember it, just that you found yourself lying on the ground," Rory said. "I told you Amy was late for lunch and you said that it might take longer than I expected, but that I'd see her again. I didn't even know about the Silence then, but you did, because you'd seen them in 1969."

Sarah nodded. "I didn't remember why it was important, but I remembered you. And that there was something I had to tell you. So many people have messed with my memory, that I've learnt what tricks I can to keep what I know."

"You chose that song deliberately, didn't you?" Rory said slowly, "Back in 1969 you called it that. Counting magpies- counting crows. One of the earpieces was against the recorder and one was in your ear, and the song you chose keeps going on about counting crows. You used the Silence's ability to control people against them by making sure you'd count the ones you saw and that you wouldn't give away the secrets you kept."

"You should have-" the Doctor started only to be interrupted by Loire.

"She did what she could, or weren't you paying attention? She was outnumbered. What would you rather she have done? It's not like they were going to take her instead of Amy. Or maybe you would have preferred that." Both her parents tried to calm her down but she wouldn't be placated. "Me for Melody, sounds like a fair trade-"

"That's the last thing I'd ever want. Amy's a remarkable woman, but she's not going to rip apart time and space trying to get her daughter back. Or maybe she would if she could, but she can't." The Doctor looked from Turlough to Sarah and back again. "Your parents don't have the same limitations and I don't trust your parents to show the same restraint. _And_ there has to be someone who can step back from this situation and do what needs to be done. What I _was_ going to say was that she shouldn't have interfered at all. The last thing we need right now is for Madame Kovarian to become curious about Sarah Jane Smith."

Loire fell back against the pillow, deflated. "I just- You always expect too much from them. And it scares me. They try to protect me, I know they do, but if this is what I do see, how much worse is what I don't?"

Turlough and Sarah looked at each other. "I think try is the operative word here," Turlough said gently. "Maybe it's only the things we can't stop getting to you. The worst of the lot."

"Or maybe," Sarah added with a strange little laugh. "We're just lousy parents."

"Don't say that. Don't ever say that," Loire said sharply.

"Well, then, stop saying you're less important than Melody," Turlough replied. "I look at you and see a girl who's not only determined to take care of herself, she's just as focused on taking care of us. You shouldn't need to be the parent here." He hugged her gently. "We both had to grow up too quickly. Sarah's aunt loved her, but she was the epitome of the scatterbrained scientist, and I ended up sole parent to my teenage brother when I was barely out of my teens myself. It's the one thing we never wanted for you."

The girl laid her head on her father's shoulder and her mother reached over and stroked her hair. "I just- you're so busy thinking about what other people need from you. I hate to be a burden."

"That you could never be," Amy said. "Loire, in case you haven't noticed, your parents adore you."

"I'm with the Doctor," Rory reassured her. "I think I'd rather have you safe and your mum free to focus on what she's doing- subtly weakening Madame Kovarian's power base." He caught Amy's hand and squeezed it. "Sarah's the mastermind behind the Orbus Postremo."

The Doctor laughed. "I've never heard it described quite that way, but yes, she is."

Sarah leaned over and kissed her daughter on the forehead. "Can I trust you to get her home safely?"

"I can't _go_ home," Loire said, almost whining. "Madame Kovarian thinks Loire Turlough is dead."

Rory frowned. The girl was clearly exhausted and in pain. He found himself looking at her parents- at the people who would become her parents- for another solution.

"Earth then." Sarah was already taking charge. "I'll give you a list of people who can take her in if I'm not around." She glanced at Turlough and he nodded his approval.

"If you trust them. I only have to be on Trion three months of the year anyway. If I act like I'm spending the rest of the time looking for her, no one will be surprised if I don't go back to the Winter Palace." He also kissed Loire on the forehead. "I'll see you soon. I promise. We'll figure out a way. You won't be alone."

River said she'd sit with Loire, and the others followed Sarah and Turlough to the console room.

Rory got a glimpse of a rather cluttered room and a giant computer screen before the door closed again. And then the Doctor was rushing around pulling levers and pushing buttons and they were off.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lauren quotes from "I Know Things Now" from Into the Woods.
> 
> The song Sarah is listening to is "Counting Crows" by Seanan McGuire


	10. My Story Is Not Done

# Story

The Doctor bounced around her room a bit nattering on about nothing in particular before he finally got to the point.

There had been a time when Story would have snapped at him, but somehow she managed patience until he finally got to the point.

"Story. Lore. Loire. I should have seen it." He was all arms and legs and kinetic energy, and Story had never understood what River saw in him. She just wished he'd be still once in a while.

"I was Lauren once. And again. Loire was just the closest Trion name but it also worked as a nickname so even when I lived on Earth people called me that. Maybe I gave River the idea. I don't know."

"After what happened, I'm not surprised." He looked like he was going to touch her and then thought the better of it. "You locked everything away, leaving only your link with Melody to fill in the empty space. It can't have been easy, especially considering what she was going through. And especially considering that until she was born you were the only one of your kind."

"It wasn't," she said shortly. She didn't want to talk about it. Not now, not ever.

But when had that ever stopped him? "For a while I thought you were jealous. But that wasn't it at all. Your mum said it, or was it your dad?. You're the responsible one. You cast yourself as the older sister in a fairy tale, when you know it's the youngest sister that gets all the glory. And you're so steeped in your stories that you forget that isn't all there is to life."

"I don't need you telling me my flaws." Story had always been well aware of those.

He grinned at her. "It's not a fault. You're a remarkable woman, Story. There's nothing wrong with wanting different things than River does. And sharing things doesn't mean that she gets everything and you get nothing. Not me, of course, but well, you know what I mean. And I don't think you want me. Before the war, things were different. No one would have expected you to."

"No." He'd lived through incarnation after incarnation and never known what she was. It was only River who'd brought her secret into the light. "Before the war, I was just me. Now I don't know what I am." She'd never admitted that to anybody.

"You're Loire. You're Story. You're too young to know what you want just yet. And you tell everyone's stories but your own. How old are you anyway?"

"Sixteen. I think." Not that it mattered.

"You act older than you are. Just like your parents. Did you even have a childhood?"

"Maybe?" she asked. She'd never been certain what people meant by that. She'd been a child, played with toys, gone to school, and counted on her parents to save her from the monsters under the bed. Except when they couldn't. It was River who hadn't had that. "My parents tried to give me one. I don't think it worked very well."

He smiled at that for some reason. "I suppose that's better than the alternative. You know, I live in hope that someday you'll forgive me for taking your dad home."

"I was six years old when I said that. I didn't understand then how much Dad hated Earth. Or what Mum had signed up for. I just knew that she was gone and that maybe things could have been different." Story wrapped her arms around her chest. "I don't think they knew, either. It took them a long time to figure out where their relationship was going. But they did get there."

This time he did touch her shoulder. "I didn't know back then, what your dad was running away from or that your mum was running away from anything at all. They both are very good at keeping secrets. But they both took the chance to dump their burdens and run away for a little while. Maybe you should do the same. Stop being the responsible daughter and just be Lauren or Loire or Story. I'd take you, if you could tolerate my company, or I bet River has some ideas."

Story looked up at him. "I bet she has. Is that what you've been plotting all this time?" It was an odd thought that they might have seen her as something other than a nuisance.

"You know how you see your parents working so hard and want to take some of their burdens? Well, she feels the same way about you. You might let her. It would probably be good for both of you."

He was so persuasive, she had almost believed him. Almost. "Except that isn't the problem. I've _had_ adventures." Story's voice faltered as she tried to figure out why his theory felt so wrong. "I've had adventures," she repeated. Then, "No one would ever tell me how the siege ended, and I- deep down, I think I believed it was because I died here. Do I die here?" She didn't know why she asked that or if she could even trust the answer.

"Not in any timeline I've ever seen." He stared at her in horror. "The last time we met you, it was the same thing." He tipped her chin to look into her eyes and for the first time that she remembered, he was completely still. "Do you count your own life so low? No. Don't answer that. Answer this. When was the last time you felt safe?"

"I don't know. Sometimes when I was a child. My parents did the best they could," Loire added defensively.

"I never said they didn't. I'm rescinding my earlier offer. River's recklessness stems from a need to prove that she's in control of her own life. Your mother wrested control of her life from Rassilon. You need to find some way to feel like you're in control of yours. And travelling with me or with River would be the worst thing in the world for that. Because we'd be the ones in control."

Loire couldn't think of anything to say to that. "I'm going home," she said shakily. "I've never thought past this day and I don't know what I want to do next. I need to think about what you said." She wasn't sure she believed him, but he was right about one thing. She hadn't felt in control of her own life for a very long time.

# Departure

Sarah was starting to wake up when Harry reached the TARDIS. The Doctor was already there, scarf swinging wildly as he rushed about the console.

"What happened?"

"I'm not quite sure. There was another Sarah and-"

"They touched each other. Never good to do that. Huge release of temporal energy. That's probably what freed the TARDIS." Indeed, the rotor was moving up and down as it should. "She should be okay. The main effect is usually contextual memory loss, so perhaps it's best not to mention Heartshaven to her when she wakes up."

Harry looked dubious, but he nodded his agreement and carried her up to the infirmary. No matter what the Doctor said, he wasn't going to be sure she was alright until he gave her a thorough check-up.

* * *

When Tegan, Nyssa and the Doctor got to the TARDIS, Turlough and Sarah were already there, bent over a game of chess and arguing companionably about something that made absolutely no sense to Tegan. She wasn't quite sure what was going on with the two of them. They'd clearly found something in common, though Tegan wasn't sure what. The two had mostly been working together on some bit of electronic nonsense during the crisis, and if Tegan had thought that Turlough had a crush before, now she was certain of it. She just hoped the other woman would let him down gently. After Deela, he really didn't need another heartbreaker in his life.

* * *

Martha grabbed the Doctor's hand as they ran through the catacombs towards the TARDIS, and collapsed, laughing, just inside the doors.

"The floor is damp," the Doctor observed.

"Lots of puddles in those corridors. I'm not surprised the floor is damp. As far as sieges go, that wasn't too bad." Martha added, changing the subject. "Not that I want to do that again soon."

The Doctor seemed pensive, however. "Did you ever hear who was bombing them?" He asked.

"Someone said something about a one-eyed witch in a flying castle, but I think they were joking," Martha said lightly. "Why?"

"Because the last time I was here, it was my own people who wanted the Order destroyed. But someone was clearly behind this, and I wonder who. And why. But those are questions for another day." He grinned at her. "Where to next?"

"Anywhere. Everywhere. Just not 1969 again."

He slammed the lever down and the TARDIS took flight.

* * *

The kids were chattering away with excitement when Sarah Jane slipped into the TARDIS.

"I was wondering what happened to you." The Doctor said. "Jo's putting her souvenirs into her bag for safe keeping."

"I had one last errand to run," she replied vaguely. "Did you say goodbye to River?"

The Doctor nodded. He had an idea of what it might be, but he also knew their timelines had crossed and was afraid of saying too much. "Is everything okay?"

"Yeah." She smiled at him. "I remember before the Dauntless, Sir Donald tempting me by calling it one last grand adventure. That was years ago and here I am, still running."

"Here we both are." He smiled at her. "They don't tell stories of your death, you know. They say you're sleeping, hidden, somewhere in the palace until you are needed again."

"What can I say? I stole from everywhere. That one isn't even original to King Arthur." She smiled anyway and went over to let the three kids babble at her about their adventures in the palace.

>   
> _It's not done until it's told,  
>  It's not told until it's written,  
> If I'm brave and if I'm bold,  
> I can challenge what's forbidden,  
> For nobody gets to tell me  
> That I'll never be the one.  
> When they ask you what befell me,  
> Say my story is not done._   
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title and quote are from the Seanan McGuire song "My Story Is Not Done"


	11. Interlude 5

They landed in a clearing in a wood. Loire stood unsteadily leaning against the railing in the console room whilst she waited for the Doctor and River. She didn't know where her parents had ultimately decided to send her, except that they were on Earth. There had been some argument about who was to carry her, but she insisted on walking, even if that meant leaning on River for most of the way.

She stepped cautiously out of the TARDIS after the Doctor. "It's pretty, wherever it is." Before they walked very far Loire saw a cottage in a clearing. There was just a glimpse of a winding road beyond it and no other buildings in view.

"We're in Leadworth, if you must know. Just down the road from Amy and Rory."

River looked at him in surprise. "You've been here before."

This was exactly what Loire had been thinking.

"Once. A long time ago for me, but many years from now in linear time." They had reached the cottage and he rapped on the door, not noticing the doorbell.

The woman who opened it- "Mum," Loire blurted out and threw herself into her mother's arms.

"Hallo, Sarah Jane," the Doctor said, carefully working his way around the two of them into the house, with River close behind.

It wasn't until they'd made their way through a maze of boxes to the lounge that Loire realised River had been staring at her mum since they'd arrived. She didn't blame her friend. Her mother looked at least thirty years younger than she had when she'd lived on Bannerman Road.

The Doctor was more direct. "Sarah Jane, what happened to you?"

"Minor temporal accident. Unexploded time bomb from the War. I managed to disarm it but not before getting caught in the temporal field. Not something I recommend trying. So when did you learn to fly that thing? Vislor just called to say she was missing, not ten minutes ago." Sarah wrapped an arm around her daughter and Loire let her pull her close.

"I suspect the TARDIS had something to do with it. She likes us. Me and Loire, I mean," River answered, ignoring the Doctor's preening.

The Doctor ignored her ignoring him and wandered about the room, picking things up, inspecting them and putting them down again. "Sarah, how did you do it? I know she was conceived in the TARDIS but you weren't pregnant in 1996 when Sam and I ran into you. I would have noticed the next time you met me."

Loire buried her face in her Mum's shoulder. Could he be more embarrassing?

"Simple enough with technology found in the TARDIS. The embryo was removed and placed in a stasis field and then I put it in Turlough's room. He retrieved it when you went to see him in your Tenth incarnation. The only reason we waited so long was that Deela's father blamed him for Deela's death, despite all evidence to the contrary and Trion politics are not quite as civilised as Vislor claims. We couldn't be certain he wouldn't target our daughter in revenge."

Before her mother could go into more explicit detail, River stood up. "So where is Loire's room?"

"Upstairs on the left, I thought. Unless she prefers one of the others." Sarah started to stand up to show them, but River shook her head.

"Loire and I can find it. You two finish your chat." River reached out and took Loire's hand and they headed upstairs. By the time they reached the top, Loire was leaning on her. "You don't look so good. Remember, we're not invincible. You still need time to heal."

"I didn't want to worry Mum." Loire said, but that sounded shaky even to her ears. River helped her across her room and onto her bed. She noted some of the posters and decorations she had accumulated on Bannerman Road and smiled. She could see her mum carefully packing the things away for her. Sometimes it was hard to remember that her mum had left Loire on Trion to protect her and that she really did love her.

River helped her remove her trainers and her coat. Somewhere along the line the scorch mark had been repaired, to Loire's delight. She liked that coat.

By the time River had helped her into pyjamas, her mum had come upstairs.

"Your dad will be here later in the week." A gentle hand reached out to rumple Loire's hair. "Are you okay?"

"Just tired and sore. I've been sleeping a lot. The Doctor says it's 'cause most of my energy is going towards healing." She yawned.

"Let's get you into bed then. River, it was nice to see you again." It was a dismissal, but River didn't seem to mind.

"Bye. Loire, I'll come round to visit you when I can."

"I'd like that," Loire muttered as she snuggled down in between the crisp sheets. She felt her mum's lips brush her forehead and then she slept.

The next few days fell into a pattern. Loire would sit on the sofa alternately reading and dozing whilst her mum unpacked. By the time her father arrived on the fourth day, she was awake more often than she was asleep and could manage the stairs on her own. She still felt sore, but she was healing.

Loire buried herself in his arms. Her mum was unpacking books in the lounge and she watched them carefully as they greeted each other, wishing she could persuade her dad to stay and her mum to let him. He'd been so lonely since her mum left and Loire worried about him being alone on Trion.

"Let me take my bags up and then you can give me the grand tour, Loire." her dad said, glancing around the lounge. He seemed to approve.

"First door on the left," her mum said carelessly, before turning back to the bookshelves.

Her dad looked at her expectantly, so Loire grabbed his hand and led him upstairs. "First door on the left. Mum's room." She looked at him awkwardly before leading him in. But he just started unpacking as though this were perfectly normal. "Are you sure about this?"

"About what?" He asked, then relented. "In case you haven't noticed, your mum and I have a very complex relationship. Letting someone in is hard. A casual fling, not so much. For a long time whatever it is we have was based on the fact that we could just walk away with a smile and a wave, whether or not it revealed how we truly felt." He hesitated, "I don't know what will happen next. I only have to be on Trion three months of the year. The rest of the time, I just need a video link and Sarah has that. I could get a place in the village. Maybe. She's used to being independent. For now we'll just take it one day at a time." He gave her a quick grin. "Now, what about that tour?"

Loire led him around the house, her mind in turmoil. He loved Sarah; Loire knew that, but what her mum felt about him was still a mystery. She'd never been one of those girls who thought that the only way her parents could be happy was together, but she was afraid that whatever happened, would only end up hurting her dad.

* * *

The note had given a time and an address. Nothing more. But it had been Sarah Jane's handwriting, that they had all agreed on. And so here the three of them were, packed in Luke's tiny car, travelling into the country on a Saturday morning, way too early for Rani's comfort. For a while they had discussed possible answers but then the conversation had veered off into some video game and she had given up and dozed in the back seat whilst Clyde and Luke chattered away in the front, a comforting sound that reminded her of their days at school together, before they had gone off to uni. Before she and Clyde had married.

Those days seemed so far away. It wasn't that their lives were dull now, but somehow the level of alien activity in Ealing had dropped after Sarah Jane had disappeared whilst trying to defuse that time bomb. The Doctor said that she might have been thrown somewhere else in space and time, and Rani had to believe that. There was no way Sarah Jane could be dead. But the note seemed a little too obvious. It couldn't be that easy, could it?

There had been times when she'd suspected Luke knew more than he was telling, but half the time it didn't occur to Luke that other people didn't know what he knew and the other half of the time what he knew involved his top secret job with the government and he _couldn't_ tell anyone. And while the three of them were still close, it wasn't the same as when Luke had lived across the road and they spent almost every afternoon in Sarah Jane's attic.

She was almost surprised when Luke finally pulled into a driveway. The front garden was covered in wild flowers and the stone path that led to the front door was uneven and in need of repair, but the house itself looked tidy.

Luke checked his watch and then rapped on the door. "We're a little early, but I don't think they'll mind. Whoever they are."

The face at the window looked familiar, but it wasn't until the door opened that Rani recognised her. "Lauren?" She stopped herself before tactlessly asking what the girl was doing here or how she'd imitated Sarah Jane's handwriting so well. The girl had disappeared almost as strangely as she'd arrived, and all Rani and Clyde knew was what Sarah Jane had told them- that the Doctor had restored her memory and taken her home.

"Rani and Clyde." The girl smiled hesitantly. "And you must be Luke. Mum told me about you. You're early. Lunch isn't ready yet," she added awkwardly. Then, remembering her manners, "Come in." She led them into the lounge.

The lounge reminded Rani of Sarah Jane's house on Bannerman Road, though this room was much tidier than Sarah Jane usually managed, despite the plethora of boxes in various stages of either packing or unpacking. Rani couldn't tell which. And suddenly Sarah Jane herself was there, hugging each one of them in turn.

Rani hugged her back, stunned into incoherence, "Sarah Jane? What? How?" She was relieved to notice that Clyde wasn't much better at articulating his thoughts. Luke looked less surprised, and Rani wondered what he'd known, or figured out.

Sarah Jane shrugged. "I'm sorry I couldn't let you know sooner, but I had other responsibilities. I tried to leave you some hints, to let you know I was safe, but there never seemed to be enough time." She looked younger than she had on Bannerman Road, but much more tired. "You can't tell anyone that I'm back."

Avoiding the legs of the man who was lying on the floor working on wiring something to the large flat screen on one of the walls, Rani made her way to one of the cosy looking armchairs. The man must have noticed that there were other people in the room, because he sat up as the others found places to sit. Once she could see his face, Rani recognised him from his visit to Bannerman Road fifteen years before.

Sarah Jane made introductions anyway. "Vis-"

"I know. Tea. How typically British of you." Turlough gave Sarah Jane a gentle pat on the shoulder, smiled at Lauren and left the room.

The silence seemed to stretch out for an eternity, but it couldn't have been more than a minute or two before Sarah Jane and Rani started to talk at the same time.

"I suppose you're wondering-"

"It's been so long-" Rani realised Sarah Jane was speaking and stopped only to find that the other woman had done the same.

But Sarah Jane started up again almost immediately, talking rapidly as though she was afraid that she would lose her nerve. "Before I moved to Bannerman Road, before I met any of you, I told a friend of mine that the world savers were gone and that I had moved up a rung. But I never seriously considered what that meant, or, perhaps, I didn't want to know. Time has always chosen her champions- Captain was one and now I'm another."

"But you're human," Clyde protested.

"So is Ace McShane. And Captain was a parrot. I'm still human, Clyde, I'm just something else besides. Greater responsibilities." That explained why Sarah Jane looked so tired. "I've been walking down this path since long before I met you; I just wasn't ready to acknowledge it. And that's why I couldn't come back. You were ready to go on without me and I had other things to do. Like this." She reached over and stroked Lauren's hair.

Lauren rolled her eyes at that. "Mum, one of these days you're going to get past this sappy phase and we'll all be happier for it."

Rani realised then that she had known, deep down, from the moment the girl had appeared at the door, and judging by Clyde's lack of surprise, he'd known too.

"The Doctor found me. Never mind which one. It's not relevant," Sarah Jane explained. "I wasn't ready to come back to Earth. The bomb had caused some changes in my neural pathways that I needed to adjust to, so I asked him to bring me to Trion. Vislor and I- it's a strange and complicated relationship but I knew he'd be supportive without being intrusive. Loire- Lauren was born about a year later. I spent a few years there, regaining my balance and coming to terms with what I'd become and when Loire was five, I left to take up my duties. Not without regrets, but I was needed on Earth and Vislor has always found it too primitive for his tastes. And I knew Loire would be safer with him."

Rani resisted the urge to interrupt with all the questions that this raised. Clyde was clearly doing the same. She couldn't tell how much of the rest of this was a surprise to Luke, but he was staring at Loire in shock.

But Lauren jumped in, "Long before I was born, Dad was involved with this girl who was just using him to annoy her father. Her father pulled a load of political strings to have him accused of treason and he was exiled to Earth. He met the Doctor and started travelling with him. He wasn't in a hurry to get home because he knew Deela's father would just cause more trouble. Unfortunately, it was Deela who found him first and _she_ was the one who caused trouble and not just for Dad. The whole thing ended badly and Deela was one of the casualties. When Dad finally did get back to Trion, he found that Deela's father blamed him for her death, even though he hadn't been responsible and could prove it. Deela's father passed away before I was born, and everyone thought that was the end of it, until her brother Arden kidnapped me. And that's what I was escaping from when I showed up in Bannerman Road fifteen years ago."

"The maths doesn't work," Clyde blurted out. "You're what - ten? Eleven? Add a year and that's only twelve years accounted for."

"So what happened?" Rani asked pointedly. "Why didn't you come back to us?"

"Remember that I was thrown into a different time. And that the Doctor has never been able to land where he's supposed to. He brought me to Trion about three years after the explosion, adjusting for differences between Earth and Trion years, but it had been barely a month for me. While I left Trion six years ago, that's only been another year of my life. Most of that was spent sorting out temporal disturbances on Earth and elsewhere and this is the first chance I've had to spend any length of time in the 21st century in at least six months. I checked in on you when I first returned to Earth a year ago, but you were doing fine without me. Back when I lived on Bannerman Road, I used to think that if only the Doctor were here, everything would be simpler, but that's a dangerous pattern. He couldn't keep running to my aid every time I got in over my head, and I can't be your safety net either. You'll see me sometimes, but I trained you to do what was once my job and you can do it, even when I'm not there. Ah, here's the tea." She smiled up at Turlough as he laid down the tea set. "I'll be mother this time."

Turlough laughed, and Rani guessed it must be a joke between the two of them.

It wasn't until everyone was supplied with tea and biscuits, that Sarah Jane continued. "If it had just been a simple kidnapping, once Loire got to Bannerman Road she would have been fine. But it wasn't. An enemy of the Doctor was trying to get to him through his companions. I lost sight of Loire for a minute."

"I walked out of your house without any clear idea of where I was going," Loire protested. "I didn't remember much and what I _did_ remember was all muddled. It wasn't your fault."

Sarah Jane clearly didn't agree, but she let it lie.

"So this woman captured me again, and tried to convince me I was someone else. It escalated. I- She shot me and I managed to convince her I was dead. Am dead. The Doctor and his friends showed up and got me out of there, but I couldn't go back home, so mum made arrangements for me to come here."

That explained the boxes. "You just moved in," Rani said.

"Plan B. Trion's no longer safe for Loire, so that meant I needed to settle down again. There was money in a bank account under a false name, and I've owned this place for a while under the same name. I knew I might need both, if I ever stopped wandering." She hesitated. "Luke and a friend of mine named Josh Townsend had enough information to find both. I imagine you've been keeping an eye on it, Luke?"

He nodded. "We both knew you could have hid that information so well that neither of us would have found it. But the only reason to make preparations like that is if you _knew_ you'd be coming back. I just wish-"

"I'm sorry." Sarah Jane reached over and squeezed his hand. "I wish I could have been less oblique, but I didn't know if I'd be allowed to contact you at all. I just- I wanted you to know I was okay, even if I couldn't talk to you. And once I knew it was permitted, I never seemed to have the time. There was always a new crisis."

"I gather that I won't be writing an article on your miraculous return," Rani joked, while she tried to gather her thoughts.

"No. Sarah Jane Smith as you knew her is dead. There are a few people I trust who I have notified or will notify that I'm back, but otherwise this stays our secret. You can tell Maria, of course. And Santiago, if you're still in touch with him. Not UNIT, not Torchwood."

"He's in Antarctica right now," Clyde offered. "And Maria stayed in America."

Sarah Jane smiled at that. "I thought she might. And now you need to tell me everything that's happened since I left."

"Rani and I are going to have a baby," Clyde blurted out, to Rani's surprise. They hadn't even told Luke yet. "Oh, we're married too. Five years now."

"Congratulations, both of you. I know you'll make great parents," Sarah Jane said, hugging them both tightly.

"When did this happen?" Luke demanded.

"Last night, while you were picking up the curry. Finding out, I mean. Not, um-" Rani attempted to look embarrassed but feared she only looked thrilled. And suddenly all the talk was about plans for the baby and for the first time in a long time, Rani felt like everything was right with the world.

* * *

The days drifted past. Loire started school in the village and went to Oxford twice to visit Luke and once had even gone to see Rani in London so that she could help paint the baby's room. Rani had even explained that her hostility stemmed from fear that she might harm Sarah Jane, and now that that fear had proved unfounded, Rani and Clyde suddenly wanted to be friends.

Loire couldn't blame her for that, but the sudden change was a bit of a shock. Still, it wasn't as though they were her friends. They were Luke's friends and she was his much younger tag-along sister, and that felt right too. None of the three pretended that they wanted an eleven year old hanging around all the time and she was happy enough with the way things had turned out.

Days turned into weeks and her dad was still here, reading a lot, arguing companionably with her mum, and occasionally actually poring over government documents or participating in conference calls. He'd even brought out his sketchpad, which Loire hadn't seen in a while. But mostly he just lazed about the place. Loire had known her dad was inclined to indolence, but had never been quite so aware of it. There was always something else he wanted to stick around for, or he'd overslept, or it was raining. Most of his excuses were absurd, but her mum never argued the point.

Her mum seemed to like having him around for the most part. The dark circles under her eyes had vanished, the worry lines around her eyes had smoothed out and she laughed more quickly at Loire's dad's absurdities. Once or twice, Loire got home from school to find they'd both put their work off to one side and were curled up on the sofa together watching some sappy black and white film.

This was something Loire never remembered seeing before- both of her parents were happy.

For a long time it seemed like nothing would disturb the status quo. Her father would continue to pretend he was leaving "in a day or two" and her mum would just nod.

Then came a night when Loire couldn't sleep. She knew her parents would still be awake, so she decided to go downstairs and see if she couldn't wheedle a cup of cocoa out of one of them. She stopped at the door to the kitchen when she realised what they were discussing.

"We can't go on like this, Sarah." her dad said, a little brittlely. "One day at a time, just waiting for the other shoe to drop."

"Is that what we're doing?" To Loire's surprise, her mum laughed, just as brittlely. "I thought- I don't know what I thought. You don't need to stay on my account. I know how much you hate Earth. And I can cope alone. I've done it before."

"I don't- Well, I do hate Earth. But not as much as I used to," her dad offered uncertainly. "And Loire's here. I could get a flat in the village, if I'm a bother."

"Don't be silly. You're never a bother." The words came a little too quickly and Loire wondered if her mum had been lonely too. There was a long pause, and then her mum said, almost too softly for Loire to hear, "Stay with me, Vis."

"You're sure?"

Loire went very still as she waited for her mum's response.

"Positive." Then, "No, make three cups, I think our little eavesdropper would probably like some too."

Wincing, Loire walked into the kitchen, feeling a bit sheepish. "Daddy's staying?" She couldn't keep the hope out of her voice.

"That's the plan. We'll see how it goes. We can't promise we won't drive each other crazy." Her dad was heating milk in a saucepan and her mum had fetched a packet of biscuits from the cupboard.

Loire took a biscuit and hugged each of her parents in turn. Even if they couldn't make it work, it was enough that they were trying. Maybe there were such things as happy endings.


	12. Wicked Girls Saving Ourselves

River sat on the bed and watched Story pack. The bombers had left, as expected, after the time lock had been forced open by the Blinovitch explosion. The last of the TARDISes had gone and the first shuttle from Trion was due in an hour. "What now?"

"I don't know," Story said. "Home first and then, I don't know," she repeated.

Story was younger than River right now. Somehow that hadn't registered before. River had always trusted Story to have the answers. To be the big sister. But River had the Doctor to catch her when she fell, and she didn't think Story trusted anyone that much. She'd saved Story from the assassin at the beginning of the siege without thought. It had never been Story who needed saving before. "You'll figure it out. You always do."

The girl put some folded shirts in her bag and then turned to look at River. "Do I?" She sounded uncertain. Leaving her packing, she sat down gingerly on the bed beside River. "What do you see when you look at me?"

"My big sister. Who's not so big right now," River added, almost as an afterthought. "When I was a child, I was always scared but you were there to comfort me. Until you weren't and that scared me even more. Especially when I realised she had got you too." She laid an arm around Story's shoulders. "And I knew I could protect you for once if I could only get free of her."

Story stared up at her. "I never knew."

"You were in my head. Didn't it ever occur to you that I was in yours too?" River didn't need an answer to that, she could see it in Story's eyes. "You save me, I save you. I'm not that scared child any more. Stop assuming I'm always the one who needs protecting."

Story just stared at her for a moment. "It's hard. The Doctor said I got caught up in your memories when mine were gone and it's true. I look at you and there's this visceral sense of fear." She pulled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them, suddenly looking even younger than she was. "I didn't know you were scared for me. Logically it makes sense but- I don't know. I'm all muddled right now." She stood up with sudden energy. "I should pack. The Order might think I'm special, but the shuttle won't wait for me."

River nodded. "Just remember that back then, I wanted to save you just as much as you wanted to save me. You were just better at the saving business."

That got a laugh and when Story turned there was a slight smile on her face. "Take care of yourself. Take care of him. I know you believe he's wonderful and that everyone sees what you see in him, but to be honest the first two items on my list when looking for a man would be steady and stable and he's neither. You can have him." She paused before adding, with surprising honesty, "I just get tired of feeling like a third wheel sometimes."

"You'll meet someone. One of these days. Maybe you already have."

"If you say spoilers, I'm going to hit you."

"Now there's the Story I know and love." River reached over and gave her a hug. "I still think you should let me call you younger sister when I'm older."

"Doesn't work that way."

River wasn't surprised so she changed the subject. "Home? Back to Earth?"

"Yes. I'm just suddenly missing my parents."

"I know the feeling. Travelling with Rory and Amy and the Doctor, it's like they're them but they don't know _me_ yet."

Story nodded. "That's it exactly. I need to do some thinking and that's the safest place I know."

"Can I at least give you a lift?"

"Aunt Ace is picking me up on Trion. The defences here interfere with her timebike's navigational system." Story considered her friend. "I thought my mum scared you."

"It's a good fear. I know she could outshoot me, but I also know she won't. At least she's on our side. And I like your dad. Even if he's scary too."

Story smiled at that. "They spend too much time playing the long game. When Madame Kovarian falls, she's going to fall hard."

"And won't that be something to see." River watched as Story fastened her pack. "Ready to go back to being Loire?"

"I think so." Story shrugged her pack on to her back. "Oh, wait. I nearly forgot." She pressed a decoration on the wall and a tiny bubble opened. Her hand closed around something that River couldn't see, which was quickly transferred to a pocket. But the girl was smiling at her. "Plans for Stormcage. If I'm going to figure out how to break you out, I should get started, shouldn't I?"

"I would appreciate that." River offered an arm to her sister. 'Remind me to return the favour someday."

Story took it and they went arm in arm to the shuttleport together.

> _Tinker Bell says, and I find I agree  
>  You have to break rules if you want to break free.  
> So do as you like -- we're determined to be  
> Wicked girls saving ourselves._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title and quote from the Seanan McGuire song "Wicked Girls"


End file.
